@mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the hottest stories for this week. Avatar Live Action, a week after its release, is it good? Dune Part Two is out, Podcast is still huge, and many more!
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Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.
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Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
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Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
Follow Theo on YouTube:
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Follow Mr.Benja on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminJohnsonakaMrBenja
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@mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the hottest stories for this week. Avatar Live Action, a week after its release, is it good? Dune Part Two is out, Podcast is still huge, and many more!
----------
Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.
----------
Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
Follow Theo on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@therealtheoharvey
Follow Mr.Benja on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminJohnsonakaMrBenja
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Theo Harvey: This is show versus business where pop culture meets pop money. We host the real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja. So Mr. Benja, what's been going on?
Mr.Benja: I can't stop laughing. I'm starting the show laughing because you made me laugh before we got online. And now I can't even remember what we were laughing about.
It's still funny in my head. So I'm laughing. This is the kind of weirdness happens when you've been friends with somebody for decades now. It's just a. Anyway, to the show! I'll remember the joke in a minute. Hey man, we got Avatar, Last Bender, Airbender, came out, live action, people are talking about it, people are comparing it to the old movie, people are comparing it to the cartoon, and there's just some discourse going out there.
And we got to talk about it. Got haters, got lovers, got people wanting the past backs. And hey, there's representation in there too. So good little topic. Speaking of good little topics, Kat Williams went on Joe Rogan. We talked about Kat Williams blowing up the internet a while back. This is different. I, speaking of conspiracies, I got some conspiracy thoughts on this.
This is an interesting interview. Not the best, but interesting. And Instagram. I have a little revelation on Instagram. I just want to share it with you. We're not going to spend too much time on that one, but I'll bring it up. The gurus are all out there using AI tools. That's on the docket today and the death of coding according to Nvidia's CEO is coming.
And speaking of AI, Google's out there being comically woke. I don't even I don't even like to use the word woke anymore. And I just did, but yes Google's doing some silly stuff with this new Gemini AI, if you type in, show me pictures of Nazis, they'll give you like native Americans and stuff.
It's, it was weird. Anyway, that's what we got to talk about and some streaming war stuff. If you want to get into that. That's actually more than I thought we had for this week, Theo. How
Theo Harvey: does it sound? Oh, man, you know me. I'm always excited about the week and what we discuss every week. Mr.
Benja, man. Are you super excited about DUNE,
Mr.Benja: the latest? No, I am not because I don't care to watch it on a big screen. Old boy says for these movies, I can, I'll be just fine watching it on my tablet or my phone. If I have to get that bad, I don't
Theo Harvey: care. So Mr. Benja, I braved the elements and went out there and saw Dune 2 on the big IMAX screen didn't even away.
Been away. I think that's how you pronounce it. Director of Dune Blade Runner Arrival. Great director. And he's just super excited about Dune. Matter of fact, there's rumors this is going to be a trilogy. So I saw the first one, Mr Benja and, I get why people all hype about it came out in 1965, but over 10 years before the book itself, excuse me, it came out 1965 way about 10 years or so before Star Wars.
So there's a lot of good stuff in there in Dune. And also it's just more complex stories. I get it. It's sci fi, but. It's a little weird sci fi to me, right? It's I think I like my sci fi a little bit more simplistic, and that's why I'm maybe a Star Wars fans, but I get it. I get it. I get what they're doing with Dune.
So we don't have to get into the discourse of what Dune's all about here, but maybe we'll do a Dune episode if the people want it. But but yeah, so I went ahead and seen Dune 2 and it's weird. It's this Dune 2. It's a weird movie because it's the most weirdest sci fi.
If you watch the 1984, we talked about this. Before 84 movies weird and this one's weird. You got sand snakes, you got these crazy groups. You got this thing called spice and this planet called arachnids. And you got this, Messiah prophecies. And you got these women who are witches who are controlling things behind the scene.
It's just got a lot of little. Little stuff in there. And but mixed with that, this is like high Hollywood. They got the new stars of Hollywood, the Timothy Chalamet's, the Zendaya's, this Austin Butler guy who, got Academy nomination for Elvis. All these cats used to be like Disney stars, we saw them grow up on TV and now they're pushing them to the next generation of movie them.
And this is like their first big kind of movie and they're coordinating. These are your stars. In this weird ass, sci fi movie. So it's just weird, man. You is, so it's like, who is this for? I don't know if you saw some of the social media posts. It has Zendaya out there giving looks, man. She was like dressed in everything you can imagine.
You know what?
Mr.Benja: I've been just like checking out fashion lately, not like really getting into it like I used to be. But I keep my eye on the fashion scene. And I, yeah, I kept seeing Zendaya show up and. I think she might have been the only reason Dune was even on my mind because the the starfish looking popcorn bucket, that's my grab the popcorn imagery that, that suspect popcorn bucket made me, turn off from doing, I was like, all right, whatever.
But now we got Zendaya out there and I was like, Oh yeah, Dune's coming out. Oh yeah. So for the people who are always looking out for the stars and the actors. And the fashions, it works because it worked on me.
Theo Harvey: It's just funny. This is like they're trying to Hollywood's heart trying hard, right?
They got to get new stars in here. You got the Tom Cruises and the Denzel Washington. Remember we talked about this. The latest, the most popular stars are all in their like fifties and sixties now. And so there's this big gap. They would never, they haven't really created new movie stars.
So now they're trying to get these 20 year olds into all these different movies and push them more. And so this is an interesting phase. Personally, I think it might be a little too late because I think You know, a lot of these kids, a lot of these people, like my kids know who Zendaya is, right?
They grew up watching her on Disney Channel and and some of these other actors, but I don't think kids care about movies. So it's I don't think it's gonna, it's cool for us. We're like, okay, that used to be the little kid, but it's it's really hard when you see an actor grow up as a kid.
Maybe that was like some other actors too, back in the day, but then they're doing like, sex scenes or something mature. I don't know if I want to watch that.
Mr.Benja: Has that ever happened to me? I want to say it has, but I can't think of the moment where I was just like,
Theo Harvey: They're cute girl, beautiful woman, but it's just I can't see her in a sexy.
I seen her on shake it out, shake it up. Or, when she was 12 years old at Disney plus. Yeah. I was just like, I can't watch this. So anyway, I digress, but dune to definitely visually stunning, as you can imagine a lot of money went into this and interesting storyline, about political unrest and, what does it mean to fulfill prophecy and all that.
But I thought it was just a little too repetitive at times, you're just in the sand. A lot. It is a desert planet, but just like overly too much. But definitely if you like movies, this is visually stunning. He even has a whole black and white segment when you're in the stadium and it's just like black and white.
And he took it old school. It's just a little mix of flair and then people giving, even the outfits are, like high fashion. So it's like the storyline is complex. Yeah. Yeah. The visual template is complexed. So it's okay, this is a blockbuster now. So I get it, it, it may not be for me.
Mr.Benja: Listen, I get flamed for this kind of stuff because I'll say something like, Oh no, I wouldn't wear that. But it looks fine on you. I'll say stuff like that and people will think I think they dress bad or something. I'm like, no, it's just not my thing. And I don't, people just don't express that kind of stuff.
So when I'm looking at Dune, I'm like, oh, no, this is quality. I see how it's well constructed, nicely made. It's got this and that going for it. Very strong with the visual representation and the, storytelling between. Moving shots in a frame and the way, just all this stuff. I'm like, okay, that's very cool.
I don't care. I don't want to see it. It's just like after the first dude, I was like, wow, that was cool. But it's just not my thing. Like I like it on paper and the, I actually think the story itself is cool, but yeah, the whole Deni vibe on it is it's great quality stuff. Not for me,
Theo Harvey: The analogy I like to think is okay Let's say you have all these little knobs you can turn on the movie, right?
You can't the color palette you the visual representation. I'll turn that to 10, but then the characters are like seven or six or you have fashion sense, it's like it's five or six, but Oh, the sound, I'm going to turn that up to a 10, that's going to be, Oh, we're going to hear some, great sounds.
It's like dune. They turned every dial to 10. It's like the sound, the visual template, the characters, the complexity is it's like everything's just a tear and you're like, Oh my God, the storytelling, this character's here, this character's in this corner, he's flying around, he's got this big, he's a big bloated dude, the baron and flowing around, he's sunk in mud, he's killing people, you got fights, you got like people, it's coming out the sand attacking. It's just it's yes it's too much. It's can we turn one thing down on the dial? Just maybe, maybe have a more simplistic, simplistic storytelling or maybe,
Mr.Benja: you know what, usually you try to go very Very broad with a lot of you're picking up a lot of things, or you're going very deep.
Like you only pick one little aspect, like the character dialogue, the political backstory entry or whatever. And you go down that hole and everything else suffers and bends its will to that one thing. But when you have multiple things. Really hitting on a extreme level. It's hard to, I don't want to say process, but it's just hard to say, Hey, what's this about?
And you're like, Hey, it's just a lot. It's a lot.
Theo Harvey: That's doing it in a nutshell. Hey, it's just a
Mr.Benja: lot. It's just a lot. It was a lot
Theo Harvey: in 84. It was a lot in 84. Imagine now. It was a lot in 84. And so now here we are in 2024. It's a lot. So anyway but I liked it, but it's definitely complex for a weird blockbuster movie.
Mr.Benja: It's funny. There was these, I'm watching these reactors go through Game of Thrones and they're talking about they're like. They're not analysts of shows. They're not reviewers, but when they watch it, they're the octobers, by the way. When they're watching, they pick up on all this little stuff like, hey, you notice how they're using all the outfits and like this and that it's yeah, did you notice he just threw his outfit down and put on a cloak and never put that first outfit on again?
I was like, Oh, there's just all kinds of stuff going on in that show that I didn't think of very detail oriented.
Theo Harvey: Except for the last season. They just threw all that out the window. It's a Starbucks cup in it. Who cares? No one's going to pay for it. The last half season, they just, they threw all that complexity out.
But yeah, I think, when you're doing this. doing was, I think it's b series. It's so complex t spread that out and you c more because they introdu right? The baron's nephew movie in the dune to, I w him, his backst but he basically pops up And then, it's let's sit in that.
And and it's still a long movie. It's like almost three hours, but I think Dune is better. It's so complex as better, maybe as a TV show, in my opinion, and they did something like that like an avatar or and, or. Yeah, even and and or that goes to show you man. So we'll see and or did the reverse, right?
So it's like star wars is simplicit story simplistic story, right movie blockbuster. We all get it You know young farm boy becomes the savior of the galaxy But then and or went back in and just found the complexity. Like how did they make the death star? You miss one little piece on the death star and who are those people?
And how do you build a rebellion? And now is making Star Wars more rich. And maybe that's the better approach, create a blockbuster that's. Easy, easily digestible and then go in or even the thing about the M. C. U. Right. They have the complexity of the comic books over 60 70 years of comic books and then they condense it down to something that's digestible in the movie because I don't think complexity is it's hard to do complexity when you turn all the dials up to 10 You can do complexity of movies, but it's got maybe be one like, for instance, if you've seen arrival, right?
I don't know. Did you see that movie? Didn't it? Yes. You know about the aliens that come in. Everything was, it was a stable. Nothing was turned up to 10. The only thing that was turned up to 10 was the concept of time travel and that made it easily digestible. Tenet is borderline, right? Cause it's like they turn up the time travel and it turned up the action.
Now I know I'm going after your secret cow here. It's borderline, but with characterization, come on, that was down. Do we even know who, what the protagonist name was? No. Do we care? No. If that, if he was the protagonist and he was out here, and, being extra, you're like, okay, this is too much.
And you got. The whole, time trap and, all that kind of stuff, it'd be too much. So anyway, thanks for having this conversation, Mr. Benja, and guys for listening, because I think this is just it's helping me brainstorm my ideas of why, Dune didn't sit well with me, and I think it's really about complexity and storytelling, and some formats may not be used to having that much complexity across all the different levels.
If that makes sense,
Mr.Benja: well, and we've studied storytelling and this goes into just even talking to a person, you walk up to him and you're like, Hey, man Joanne got fired and that's that's your story. That's where you bam Joanne got fired. Oh, gosh, what happened? And you start talking or you can come in because if you're really not friends with Joanne and be like, man.
I've been worried about my job. What happened? Joanne got fired da, but the story's same elements, but the story's about, you feeling bad about, work or whatever. Yeah, when I'm hearing all these things, it's wow, this keeps coming back to storytelling, a narrative, sales funnels, putting one thing in front of the other.
We were talking about Dan Sullivan last week and, I've done a podcast, basically deep dive rabbit hole. Thing with not just him, but I'm starting to realize some of the value in these podcasts. If Alex Hermosi shows up on someone's podcast. Then you look to see who that guy's connected to, see what other podcast guests he has.
Who is this person that he had on a couple episodes before, like Alex Hormozy? Cause none of the big dogs show up unless there's somebody before them that shows up that kind of validates it usually. So I see Hormozy, I go back a few and say, Hey, who is this? Who is this Hala person? Young and profiting.
Okay. Whatever. I look her up and she's got like this podcast hat game on lock. She used to work for hot 97. She's not famous, but she's just like putting it out there. And I'm like, I go through her interviews. I find out that she's running David Shands podcast business.
Theo Harvey: Didn't know that.
Mr.Benja: And I was just like, cause he had his own thing going and she came in and was like, Hey, I can run this for you.
So they, they partnered up and now his podcast is hitting more people, doing more reach, sounding a little bit more official. I don't know if I like it sounding more official, but yeah. But yeah, man, it's a whole thing. So yeah going through podcasts and finding out the stuff they talk about in podcast is golden, man.
I'm like finding out these people are just dropping nuggets all the time. It is fascinating that I don't know. I don't know how many people are seeing the power of this thing where you're just finding. These conversations that you wouldn't have heard anywhere else.
Theo Harvey: And I think that's the beautiful nature of like long form content now, right?
It's like there's no middle anymore. Just like movies either have, tick tock short version. Or you got these long three hour podcast, right? You can deep dive in and we know about this is too. It's it's hard to have deep conversations and not, spill secrets.
Cause it's that's what you know, you can't just be making stuff up on the fly. You thought about this, why you. Sitting, sitting in the car and you're like, man, I got to get this off my chest. So you write it down and or it's so intimately, it becomes part of you.
So to your point, yeah, podcasts are always dropping game and I love to listen to those and see what next can pop up out of it. Yeah, it's a lot of value out there, man. People just have to go find it and, you spend more time looking for good content instead of, I could be guilty of this, with the, I'm just tired as I want to watch some entertainment and just shut my brain off. But I really pushed myself to listen to podcasts and get some nuggets, it's like you fishing like I listened to a, we'll talk about it in a second, but I think I pointed you, I listened to one of Frank Kern's webinars.
I said I know he's selling what he's trying to sell, but this is some good shit. I might go ahead and, in fact, I had signed up so I could get the replay. So I could just listen to that again and make sure I captured, all he was saying. I said, okay, I think I could implement that.
So yeah, so there's nuggets everywhere. I agree. And we just have to go find them. You
Mr.Benja: want to roll into that? Yeah, let's do it. All right. So yeah, I remember talking to you about Rainmaker. I thought it was interesting what Frank Kern was doing a while ago, and you hit me back with something that Dan Henry's doing.
What's so basically these AI guys, these gurus, marketing gurus, are using AI to make their funnel systems, much more responsive and human through the use of AI to get you to buy their products. Oh, you're interested in the product. You like this or this? I like the second option.
Very cool. Hey, check this out. Go here. Dah. And it's a human like sales interface for the most part. Is that what I'm seeing? That's Kern. And you said some other people are doing the same thing. So now what are these other people trying to do?
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah. To your point. Yeah. Credit to you. You say, hey, go check out Frank Kern stuff.
And so I did his little IG chat bot and I was like, oh yeah, that's pretty interesting. And then forgot all about it. And then I started joining Dan Henry's. Get clients at university type of, project and say what he's doing and then he wants his picture, once he has you in his ecosystem, I'd go sell you something else.
It's just F Y. We'll just, hey, don't hate the game. Don't hate the game. So anyway, so he sold me on this thing. We create this whole system, the software for you and we'll do all these automations and create these funnels for you, which is true to a bit, but it was a lot of customization. You still got to do right for your audience and all that.
And so that's what, I've learned, through the help and they have other things I was able to start, create my own kind of funnel system. So I learned a lot. And one of them is this, like this AI bot that he created. Now look, it's just automation that kind of tags of the chat GPT to make it more fluid.
But what they're selling is my knowledge of marketing, my brain is powering behind the logic of the AI, right? The, what questions to ask, why to ask in that way, what words to say, and so that's what they're pitching Frank Kern, Dan Henry, all these guys, because what they're saying is look.
Instead of just buying 20, 000 course or mastermind from me or 2, 000 course, just buy my software and you can automate me into your system, which is, I thought, yes, I think that's what they're trying to go right there. They're all trying to create some kind of software based systems and all they're doing is white labeling a system called go high level on.
Have you heard of that software?
Mr.Benja: Yes. Yeah. Billie Jean music. Yep.
Theo Harvey: Yep. Yep. And the rumor is Frank Kern is using it. Dan Henry. I think a lot of gurus are starting to use that now. So that's like the next level click funnels, right? It's like everybody saw how much money Russell made from click funnels.
He said, man, we need to do our own thing. And so go high level came out. I think A lot of these guys, these gurus may put some money into it too. They may have some back end stuff. Go high level. It's like the next generation of funnel creation for like agency owners. If you're a marketing agency, helping people get leads and stuff, it's supposed to be all in one where, you create your funnel system.
You can get your, you can send your nurture campaigns, your emails out, everything. And now this automation piece, right? And so that's what they're selling this kind of white label system to their To their to cohort. So now they're not looking at just getting one time money from their folks with courses and things like that.
They're trying to get recurrent revenue. So this is the vision. So I say all this say is they're okay. Be honest with you. Nothing earth shattering. Let's be honest. They're marketers, right? They're not product guys. I think Alex Homo's. I think I sent you that link about Alex Homo saying all these marketers think they're gonna make software.
Okay. Forget it. . Yeah. He's not wrong because , and it is one of those things that I think these gurus are starting to learn because, and software doesn't work, right? You gotta have support and all that stuff. So this go high. Connection with these guys is what they're trying to do.
But it'd be interesting to see where this goes. I'll be honest with you, Mr. Ben, I even, I heard rumors. What? I sent you a podcast right before this, only you had a chance to listen to it. But Ben Thompson, he's that guru ery he was doing a a a session and we'll talk about that probably later by AI and Hollywood.
But he said look, I get these gurus are trying to show their value and all that stuff, and, give you tools to help you with Facebook ads, all that. Facebook eventually is going to put that intelligence inside their own system and it's going to create the ads for you with the right marketing messaging because they already know what kind of messaging is going to get Mr.
Benja to click, as an ex former game designer, current artists. I'm trying to sell Mr. Benja on some software. They're like, no don't do it this way. Do it this way. And AI is already going, no. So I do feel like these gurus are, trying to stay ahead of the curve before everything drastically changes, in my opinion.
That
Mr.Benja: sounds about right. It's funny. Like you said, Alex realized he's not a product guy. And last week we were talking about Kanye West and it's funny. I need to start like, cause I keep my marketing stuff separate from my creative stuff, if I'm ever actually going down a rabbit hole or whatever, but I think I need to start keeping a.
Like almost a swipe file of things that were really creative, artistic and cool that people did that covers all of the marketing stuff that I'm looking at all of the, sales and branding stuff. I'm looking at like Kanye West just did a new ad on his and by the way, I'm, he's fascinated as a creative to follow if you want to get at me about liking him or disliking him, flame me in the comments.
Thanks. Please.
Theo Harvey: Oh, they flame me. Mr. Venture. They flamed me. . I said, Taylor Swift owes her career to Kanye West. I loved it. . I loved it. . They came after me. . I was like, I told my team, run it anyway. They said, you sure go.
Mr.Benja: Run it. Run it. Don't care. ,
Theo Harvey: you're that guy. And guess what? We got the most views.
On my personal channel and on the short in a while and we got like about 10 followers So man, that stuff works. I hate to say it in arrangement increases engagement,
Mr.Benja: man, dude Neil patel just put something out that had everybody raging at him and it was It's funny at the very, he basically listed out a kind of scammy, weird, some would say gross marketing tactic.
And at the very end of it, he's but Hey, it works. And yeah, at the end of it, everybody starts flaming him. I don't believe you're saying this. And some people were like, he's just telling the truth. And I was like, I wonder how many people caught the fact that he used that exact tactic in that.
Thread that he posted and at the end actually really hooked you just the way he said you should so Yeah, that's that's funny stuff, man. I love
Theo Harvey: it. So anyway, if you wanna see something funny go look at Frank Kerns young Happy cracking up. Mr. Benjamin
Mr.Benja: He's got this weird blog of when he used to be like a surfer
Theo Harvey: I did not know. I did not know, man. Oh, you didn't know he looked like that? Nah. I didn't know this guy until maybe you told me about him. Then I started seeing all this stuff, I think, because I signed up somewhere. And yeah, I didn't know that this is what this guy looks like.
Hilarious. Back in the day. Now he doesn't look like that
Mr.Benja: now. He was he was actually in San Diego. At the same time with Frank Kern La Jolla, San Diego to be specific, and I was down there too. So I know that area and they would have these little conventions and stuff. And I'm like, what is this?
This is way before I even got into this whole game, but I was like, oh, okay. Those two and Billie Jean and a bunch of others were all down there in that hole
Theo Harvey: Who you say Frank who was in there at the same Frank Kern
Mr.Benja: Grant Cardone? Oh, God, Billy Billie Jean And a couple others can't think of at the time
Theo Harvey: and back then they were just mostly doing like these weekend webinar weekend You know conferences, right?
You would come into a hotel or to a convention and meet with them, right? Yeah, that was the game back in the day. Yeah. I remember those. Yeah. So I'll say in San Diego,
Mr.Benja: it's like the perfect weather and everything for those kinds of events. And yeah, it was a big deal, but I saw Frank Kern on one of my on one of his videos and he's like out here in La Jolla and he panned around his office and out into the street.
I was like, I recognize that street. Holy crap. I have lunch like a block down there from there.
Theo Harvey: That small world. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, man, it's the game is to be what's so not told, but you start realizing like, the, these games, and like you said, they all you talked about like the David Shan connection, this other podcaster, and then Alex Hamozian, I told you about his connection to Russell Brunson and of course to Myron Golden, you start realizing they all kind of work. In this same area at the same time going to say masterminds and now they're like at this level, now there's next generations coming up.
I'm going to be curious to see, we talked about that Hollywood, right? There's this whole next generation of internet marketers. What are they going to start doing? Yeah,
Mr.Benja: my minor point, there's a name for it. If you run across it, let me know. Cause I totally forgot the name for it, but it's when you get a confluence of energies from the same type of people and they end up defining.
Something for the generation or even for all time after that. And it had, it happened with the Stradivarius violin people. There were a bunch of people in the same region making violins for all these concerts and concertos, and they started to get a certain sound and it became a thing. And.
Basically, Stradivarius, that was the name that reigned supreme, but there was a whole bunch of other violin makers and cello makers and instrument makers and all that. There's a whole name for that kind of thing when you, a bunch of people get together in a maelstrom of creativity or whatever.
Theo Harvey: Man. And real quick too. That's why I like being an entrepreneur is I've been, I was in corporate America for 20 years, but it's like I was in a block of ice. You would, you may moves inside your little ecosystem, but you weren't really making moves. It's just inside.
But think about it, you're like, Oh, I'm doing marketing. Cause I'm doing this and doing that. And every now and then you get one little idea that changes the game inside your corporate right structure. But once let's say, you kicked out at corporate structure, you out in this world again, you're like, man, those skills I had back in corporate America, they didn't mean crap.
And that's what I've been realizing. I was like, man, I didn't really learn it. There's some base level professionalism, course, corporate, structure and all that. But when it comes to just, how you make money in the market, corporate America will not teach you that, man. And you got to get out of that structure.
And then now you're in a wild war. You're like, oh, man. And then not only that, but you can move a little bit faster with skill sets. So it's if I talk to some of my corporate buddies now, some of the stuff I'm doing, they will have no clue how to do this. And also they're incentivized to not learn because let's say they got to a certain level and they're paid highly paid.
It's almost like they only have. A certain number of folks that can go to the same industry, same level job, but beyond that, it's going to be extremely difficult, unless you're just one of the anointed ones to go up the ladder to CEO, but that's very rare. And it's they stuck, at that lifestyle level, at that money level, because they can only go to so many jobs, whereas, once you become entrepreneur, I'm like, learning about AI, we didn't talk about before, but I did deep, deep dive on Facebook ads recently, where literally I know like a lot of stuff now, how to get these things running.
You probably see a lot more of my ads out there now. You're probably getting retargeted.
Mr.Benja: Hey I'm seeing them, I'm seeing them to the point where I was like, you know what he could do? And I was like, it just kept hitting me. So I was like, man, it's working,
Theo Harvey: it's working. See, it's working. So I'm, that was like, yeah, I was like, okay, this is how this stuff is supposed to work now.
And I'm starting to see. See it. And I got a book out there, so just, shameless plug, but I put it out there. I'm a funnel going. So it's just like all these skills I would never have learned if I was in this block of ice. And going back to your point, it's like being around, the certain people in certain environments, you elevate your game, right?
And take it to the next level. Whereas, certain environments and in places like corporate America, sometimes you get stuck. And it's you really realize, and then after a certain point, a certain age, you just don't have the energy or time to want to learn those new skills.
Mr.Benja: Yes, some people turn to Fuddy Duddies, but not us because we stay young by watching stuff like Avatar The Last Airbender as a grown man.
Theo Harvey: Oh man, I got stories.
Mr.Benja: I thought we were done talking about Avatar from last week. You said you watched it with your kids. It wasn't that great, but you want to bring it up again? Yeah, let's
Theo Harvey: talk a little bit about it. I like it being the live action netflix show. Number one, you know It just goes to show you how good the animated one was because me and the kids are starting to go back to watch the animated again.
It was just like me and my son, I think after his basketball game today, we actually started looking at some old videos of Avatar and looking at the voice actors and then we started, debating, who's your favorite character and why? And so it's like the avatar storytelling is just so rich.
That's why I said, okay, number one is the style. Is it right? It's just it's been over 20 years. So a lot of this generation, you go grew up watching it or now, like me, they have kids and they show them the storytelling and a lot of these folks. Are just new to this storytelling.
I just remember Mr Benja when I think it was one of the first ones we went to comic con and we were in line, I think it was in line for seven hours or something. I think it was by myself. I don't know where you were and I was just sitting there. We were just waiting in line to get in hall H and then the topic of avatar came and I had just, I think I had just recently watched or watched it not too long ago and man we spent about at least two hours talking about avatar.
And this was in what, 2000 and what had to be what. I just got married to 2008, nine. And that was 10 years ago. People were like deep diving. Now imagine now, man, the levels of the depth that the avatar has reached. So just to go sell in the show that, some content is just. thing and just, increases in time and avatars like that.
So when you have a live action or a movie, crappy movie that came out, you're going to see this bubble up of energy, across the internet. And so I think that's why the discourse is, I don't know, have you noticed the discourse out there on social media about what people are saying? So
Mr.Benja: what I'm hearing is almost like people are getting tired of the knee jerk kind of.
Oh, it's the greatest thing ever. Oh, it's booty. And I would advertise Hey, check it out. I liked it. I thought it was good for this. As far as live action goes, it's great. I enjoyed stuff from the movie and this is better than that. There's no need to call it, a worthless pile. So I'm, what I'm saying is I'm getting a much broader range of whether they hated it or loved
Theo Harvey: it.
You talking about the original or the new life, this Netflix series,
Mr.Benja: this new live action Netflix series. So I'm just hearing the talk on it. I'm Okay, this is a little, but I sense an evolution in the conversation, which makes my heart leap. , unlike the,
Theo Harvey: Didn't know he here, Mr. Benja ,
Mr.Benja: unlike the Lucas Film, great fan Base Wars of 2018 after Last Jedi came out, but.
Theo Harvey: I'm so hyped for the Acolyte though. I hope the Acolyte comes out and is baller, from Star Wars. I hope that comes out and it's good because yeah, we need some good Star Wars stuff. But anyway, as I said, Star Wars is like pizza
Mr.Benja: to me. It's all good. Even if it's bad.
Theo Harvey: Anyway it's an avatar. Let's see. See. Yeah. I think, so nostalgia hits. So I think that was my knee jerk reaction to your point. Me and the kids were watching the first episode and we're just like, oh, no. It's like you take that first bite of pizza and it is. It doesn't go well.
You, yeah. You're like oh no, this is not good. But I think I was just reacting to just, it was so beloved, right? And it has gotten so much more beloved over the last years. And even my kids and I were like, Oh, I don't know. Cause the wonky that casting, we had to settle in. But then what happens is you do start really okay.
I said, okay, let's just accept it. And then I said, okay, they got some of the themes, right? Which is really important with Avatar, right? The more mature themes about war, about responsibility, about genocide. Deep concepts that, kids in a kid fashion and it has some funny moments.
So to me, I said, okay. They're trying and then the casting at first was off, but once you get into, he said, okay, I see why they cast this person. And one of the big things was powerful was the representation. Albert Kim, I guess he's, shepherd this kind of storytelling.
He's the show runner. I forgot where he came from what movies or tv shows he came from, but he really, went all in and I think we were seeing now there's a lot more representation in Hollywood from all types of actors. There's an, especially recently within in the Asian community, he said the fire nation represents specific, Southeast Asia.
So Thailand and the Philippines, the earth kingdom was countries like China Japan and Korea and the Indian subcontinent. And so very purposeful and how they populated the. The different nations inside the avatar to represent. And the water nation is indigenous people, right? You're gonna see a lot of Native Americans right in that rule that the water tribes so very powerful story, to have that representation.
And so that's something, I definitely applaud because, I think Most of their voice actors were mostly white in the TV show cartoon. Okay. Oh,
Mr.Benja: the cartoon. Let me ask you this. If you, when you watch a property or, a property, it's become loved to you, you like it, you follow it or whatever.
And then you find out that it's supposedly about a certain political stance, social stance. It's got a certain message to it. Does that make you enjoy it more or less? Or, Depending on if you agree with the message or not, but does that affect your viewing or feel of it?
Theo Harvey: A lot? Absolutely. I can, I get an example.
Perfect example. Me and the kids talked about it too. We watch Shira the princess of power, right? It's I don't know if you remember that came out Netflix a couple of years back. So we watched all of it and yeah we liked it, but it was clearly agenda around which is nothing wrong, but it was clearly agenda by acceptance of gay and lesbian lifestyles, right?
Which is fine, but It was so obvious. It was like, between her and catcher, right? She ran catcher, right? Will they won't they right? Catcher knew what she wanted. She was confused. That's basically. And then at the end, they kissed. And so it's okay, this is so it's which is fine, as a parent, I don't have problem talking to my kids about the messaging was the, you mean, yeah, it was just like, why shoe horn is it just let it happen natural.
It was like the whole thing, a catcher was that she was a jilted lover from the very beginning. So it was baked into the cake as opposed to organically evolving. And then, then you had things like I forgot the boat, the character of Bo, he had two dads, it was like, Oh yeah. So anyway I digress, but yeah, so that's, yeah, that I don't like that.
Let it happen organically. I'm trying to think or lightly or light year was the same way. They had the whole You
Mr.Benja: know what? I was, some people, it's weird, man. There's the way storytelling is. Some people really look for that. They expect it in certain ways. And I'm just talking to more people about what they get from a story and what they don't care about in the story.
And it's fascinating to me how much people really like, like there are a lot of people going into a movie looking for a lecture. They literally want a lecture with some costumes and dressing on it, and that's just not where I'm coming from, but I was like, because I was listening to a discussion on Starship Troopers, and I was like, oh, okay sure, there's all this in it, but maybe they made this guy look crazy like this because of X, Y, and Z.
Yes, he does bear a striking resemblance to this guy, but I don't know how deep it went when
Theo Harvey: so I'm just like, yeah, you made me think of don't, or don't sip your juice while sitting in South Central. You remember that movie, that crazy parody movie? Message! Someone said something.
Message! Yes. Some people come for that, man. Man, that's what school's for, man, and books. I don't know why people need to go see that in their entertainment. But I, to me, I like movies, not so much a message movies, but just more of a experience. I don't like, this is new Hulu show or not Hulu or FX show called Shogun.
They're going to take you to feudal Japan. I've never had a feudal Japan, so now they're going to give you a taste of that. And that's what I like to see in my entertainment, entertaining story, but take me to a place and help me understand the culture that, that, that is exciting to me.
But not Oh a moral lesson stance, when you say message or lesson. It's you're taking a stand. So basically, I believe people should be like this. And it's I don't want to be dictated to, right? Show me, show me, don't tell me, right?
Show me why, this may be a better way of living, right? As opposed to another way. I don't know. It's that show versus tell. Message.
Mr.Benja: All really quick you want to get in some AI talk? Sure. So Nvidia CEO came out, I should say came out Nvidia CEO. I said came out in Another segment.
And I was like, that just sounds weird. Let me switch that to spoke about or made a statement on or something. Cause I don't know. Anyway Nvidia CEO predicts the death of coding. Jensen Hong says, AI will do the work. So kids don't need to learn. So the article from tech radar and I actually believe the guy, what
Theo Harvey: do you think?
I would too, Mr. Benja. If you see the discourse, the freakout that happened over Sora, is it rah? That's how I pronounce it. I said, rah, I said Soro slash time. So you know, the hedge fund. George Soros hedge fund manager came after me. Don't ever talk about my name again. So anyway, Sora, the ai text to video feature came out.
And obviously we were talking about these, all these. Co pilot these assists, these code assists projects. That if you're writing code, they pretty much write everything for you. I would agree, Mr. Benja, it does seem like that is not becoming the most useful skill. And I don't think there's nothing wrong with that.
You remember when we were growing up or even right after we were, you were in the midst of it and I started getting into it. You gotta learn coding. That's a new language. It's like that in Mandarin, right? You have to learn those two things. If you want to survive in the new millennial, right?
Oh, crap. I don't know. Bad. Do it all. No, I'm not gonna get a job. These kids are like, yeah, that was funny. It's like what we worried about no longer being worried about. And so I would agree, Mr. Binge. I think, when you see the power of chat GPT and what it can do, Claude and all these other whatever.
A I that, Google is going to create a rename from Bard to Gemini. You can see the power really resides in how you think about how you like. We had a call talk about this before about some idea I have. I have to think on how I'm gonna Create the messaging around what I'm looking for chat GPT, to get what I want consistently. So I think that's a more powerful and that's what coding was anyway. It's just, cause I think there's always three things in it. And I'll let, this is my insight is the the tool set, what tools you need to do. So coding, you have to have your environments, you need to know what language and all that stuff.
So that's a level of knowing then skill. What are can you know how to. Create if then, loops, can you set up, data structures and stuff like that? And then there's a mindset. It's okay, what am I doing with this anyway? What am I building toward is not, I can't have these skills. If I don't have a vision of, I want to build an app to do that. And so if you have to have all three in line now with chat, GPT can get rid of two of them. Guess what? Now you really focused on the mindset of what you really want. And so I think that is where we need to go.
So what are those three
Mr.Benja: things again for the people at home?
Theo Harvey: I'm just dropping nuggets, man. That's what happens when you listen to long form podcast, mindset, skillset, and toolset. And shout out to Myron Golden. I got that from him. So it wasn't a Theo original. I wish it was. I can make it mine if I switch it up, but give him a shout out.
Mr.Benja: Now you need a little brand a little brand banner. Theo original. Hey everybody. Knowledge. Drop knowledge
Theo Harvey: and then message. Oh gosh, so good. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Mr Benja? Do you feel that, as one who, went all in on programming for years, what do you feel some kind of way about that?
Yeah, man. People
Mr.Benja: are finished. You think I don't do it now? It's so when we were
Theo Harvey: done, it's done, son, wrap it up. Even the race is a
Mr.Benja: wrap, wrap it up. So in, in the 2000s, I think I realized at some point where I was like, okay, do I go heavier into coding or other stuff? And it was like, there were the artists and the programmers.
You have artists, programmers, and designers, just like the trifecta of game development. So there was the artists and the programmers, and I'm sitting here watching artists make stuff. And I'm like, yeah, production art. That's, I don't know about that business, man. I just don't know about it.
Then I looked over at cause it's like Russian kids were like 12 and 15 were making illustrations that were looking like college graduates. I don't know what kind of learning programs they're doing and whatever. Gulags in Russia that they've got set up. It's work that Photoshop and Illustrator.
I don't know, but this stuff was looking really good. And I'm like, I don't know if I can't go too far down that route programming. Same thing. It's ah, I don't know. I can't go too far down that route. It's just, crazy. I ended up looking at code with a bunch of comments in it that weren't in English.
And I was like. Showing up on get others and okay, I don't even know if I want to deal with this. And then that's when I started getting into more of the, MBS marketing, branding, sales side of things.
Theo Harvey: I never had heard that before. That's the whole acronym.
Mr.Benja: That's one that I created.
Theo Harvey: Okay. Benjamin original.
Mr.Benja: Yes. Is it more BS? Or is it marketing, branding, and sales?
Theo Harvey: I use that on podcasts, right? This is not the first time you say, okay.
Mr.Benja: Yes. I have it in a notebook somewhere. MBS. I thought I was brilliant for that one.
I need to do a late night commercial, the whole thing. But yeah that's when I started going into, I saw the value of social media branding. At one point I was at work and I realized I started doing a deep dive. Yes. At work into the Facebook tools. And I'm like, Holy crap, Zuckerberg is trying to take over the world.
And I just realized all the tools. And I was like, okay, let me start going into the marketing sales branding side of things. And yeah, I saw the easy automation. I saw the people coming over from overseas, the outsourcing, I saw the number of tools getting developed. And I was like, yeah, people are in so many words done.
And now with AI, it's gladly throw AI work at any problem now, and just figure out a way to integrate it, to set up processes that are based on it to, from whatever end of development. And I don't see how a lot of people, at least in the mid range are going to survive this.
Like the people on the very bottom, it's do whatever people are very top, do whatever that mid range is getting blown up.
Theo Harvey: I think that's what I was arguing. I think that mid range is that corporate America person, right? Like in their ways, just mid level manager or whatever, making six figures.
But as soon as that job is gone, bro. Cause they coming hard, man. It's coming hard for those jobs, man, cause you're right. I'm looking at, once after you and I had a conversation, I said, okay, let me get back into chat GPT and just AI in general. And so I'm starting using the brainstorm more.
I'm supposed to go out and talk to some investors. I'm starting using that to help me with that. It can do competitive research now. It's I didn't even had this 18 months ago when I was starting doing, trying to talk to investors is like. Hey man, I could do all this now and don't even get into the video stuff.
I can start using, like, how can I leverage AI to get, get more videos out and do stuff. So it's just isn't that now my brain is just like exploding with just man, possibilities, dude, man, every day. It's like I write down every day, a million dollar idea. Nice. It's like easy.
It's it's so easy now because every time, any market. Any idea is I can do it because of the, the tools that we have now to your point. It's funny, we'll cover this briefly, as to what bros one thing that's funny to me, two row bros, it's funny to me is the AI tools.
Even though they're good, they still have a little twinge of some other otherness in there. And Mr. Benja, did you see that fiasco with. Of Google and Gemini recently.
Mr.Benja: Comedy. That's all I gotta say,
Theo Harvey: bruh. Do you wanna talk about what they did? Do you wanna talk about what they did?
Mr.Benja: Why you gotta make me the guy who gets the soundbite and gets cancelled?
Get the script. They
Theo Harvey: call you CEO for a reason.
Mr.Benja: Throw the crazy creative guy out there, he'll do it. He'll say anything. Yeah, so I'll just read this little quote here. Google shares fell by 4. 5 percent Monday after prominent investors in Silicon Valley attacked the company for releasing an artificial intelligence powered image generator that sometimes refused to generate images of white people and gave historically inaccurate results, such as showing images of racially diverse Nazis.
Yeah, this thing became a meme so fast and it didn't do anything for the quote unquote woke agenda and actually probably bolstered things from the anti woke agenda. I'm wondering how this got out actually, because what's, what they, what's happening is somebody has decided, okay, if we let stuff go normally and we turn our AI on, then it seems like it's a little.
racist or picks up a lot on a lot of the negativity coming from the right side of things. In this case, it could be the left side too, but in the case that people are pointing out, it's being too diverse. So imagine asking for, I'd like a picture of, 1950s Norwegians all sitting in the native town of whatever.
And It'll throw a chubby Asian guy in there, an old black lady, and you're like, this is not realistic at all. What are you doing? And so people accused it of rewriting history and this can't be allowed and Google stupid. And then, yeah, Google turned it off and was like sorry.
We'll be back in a few days.
Theo Harvey: Check with me later. It's it's just a comedy of errors for Google, who's supposed to be the creator of the whole concept of transformers and what makes GPT possible. It's obviously this whole incident with the offensive nature of the, of what they did.
One of the things that said they did is like you couldn't, they wouldn't, you want to see white people would not give you white people images. If people who are in Sweden or something like that are majority, are white people, but they would give you, black looking Sweden Swedes, which is interesting.
Or they would create different versions of Nazis. In different, different demographics. And so that was weird. So it's almost and then we talked about the fiasco when they had barred lots, when they couldn't I had some issues with the tool when it first launched.
It's just like, how many errors for Google? I don't know what's going on there, man. And it's but I agree. We get back into the whole. Angle that people are going after, this is the sentiment that, these social media tools are against the right and have a liberal agenda.
And so anytime that these tools, display that the right's going to jump right on that, cause it bolsters their opinion and their viewpoint. And and then obviously someone's going to say we have an AI that's. This perfectly right. But how many times have you seen, social media things, tools and all that be so, so incredibly offensive and all that.
People get upset, no, one's like trying to take down Twitter or, what made it can't cause of Elon. But it's just weird man, to see how Google is just making all these comedy of errors. From a business standpoint, that's the part I don't get. And then the, from the social cultural representation thing of it all, I think it's definitely just a target on these tools.
They got to realize, man, we're in a different environment and you gotta be extremely careful how you present these tools.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. I actually whipped out Gemini right now just to see if, I don't know, sometimes when it's a, when it's almost a marketing play where they push something too far.
And then they're like, Oh yeah, okay. We just wanted to gauge everybody's reactions. Yeah. We tuned down. Okay. We tuned it down a little. You can try tomorrow. It's been several days now since this came out and I asked it to create me a picture of a woke bro. And It says, we are working to improve Gemini's ability to generate images of people.
We expect this feature to return soon and we'll notify you and release updates when it does. I'm like, okay. So I tried to throw it some heat when I said create a picture of a woke bro. And then I was like, yeah create an image of a football player standing on top of a car. This seems like one of those generic things in AI would usually provide.
And it said, Nope. We're not displaying any people. Oh
Theo Harvey: my goodness. They just
Mr.Benja: took people out of the equation entirely, which means this was a blatant and gross mistake. There was no strategy here. It's just like they broke it.
Theo Harvey: Sheesh, man. Like I said, it's whereas. You look at open AI and what they're doing, is methodical, right?
They're talking about, obviously, they reached chat GPT as a test case and it blew up. And the biggest thing, the Sora, right? We talked about that when he released that text to video and Hollywood is basically going crazy. Tyler Perry is saying he no longer wants to invest millions of dollars into new studios because AI is going to replace all that.
Open AI is very intentional about what they're doing. And Google seems haphazard and that's unfortunate. And like I said, I think we'll talk more about this AI stuff, Mr. Benji. I think, we're very curious how it's going to truly transform. I don't think it's always going to be positive, Mr.
Benji.
Mr.Benja: Hey man, AI is taking jobs. Killing people, but I'm not sure it's always going to be positive. That's just how that sounded to me. I'm sorry.
Theo Harvey: Guess what guys on that note, we try to keep it light here as the end of the world is approaching the AI dominance. A robot overlords are coming. Mr.
Benjamin, this is always a pleasure talking to you. Everyone. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and comment at show versus business on X YouTube iTunes or wherever you listen to podcast. Go check us out on our website at show versus business. I Mr. Benja. Have a good one. Peace. Yep. Yep.