Ep. 6 | Malik Amine

In this episode of Quiet in the Halls, we welcome Malik Amine ’14, a former Division I wrestler turned financial consultant whose journey is rooted in goodness, discipline, and knowledge.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Quiet in the Halls episode six on the last podcast. We had Mr. Mac, who was a great episode. We talked a lot about finance and entrepreneurship and a lot about economics. But today I have Malik Amin, a Big Ten sports commentator and ex-wrestling alumni at Michigan. So please welcome Malik Amin.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Good to be on here, Mitchie.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

What's up, man? Thanks for thanks for uh hopping on, bro. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah, man. It's uh been a blessing. It's it's weird. I come to this school when it looks like a university. Yeah, I've been back here in a minute, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

It's been a while for you. It's been a while. Um, great to have you on. Or my first question to start off, really easy one is why'd you hop on?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Um, you know, I know your brother. I guess that's the Vegas. No, um honestly, I love podcasts. I think they're they're a great way to um express not just express your thoughts, but I think with interviewing people, it's a different type of format than I'm used to. Obviously, you know, doing the big 10 network stuff, a little more formatted. I know this is too, um, but it you get a little more personality than you do on air. And I think that's I've always appreciated that. I obviously had a had a podcast with my cousin like a couple years ago, and I really enjoy doing it. I love conversation and it it's a little more unstructured, and I feel like you get a little more authenticity versus you know on television where you have a script and you kind of gotta stay within the bounds.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, that's great. Thank you again. Um so for I guess my real first question is what was it like growing up for you? Like, can you tell us about your family life?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, so I grew up in Brighton. Actually, I grew up in Heartland um for a few years and then moved to Brighton uh when I got into elementary school. I still remember a lot of Heartland. I still have friends in Heartland. I've you know, I always like to say somewhat of a heart Heartland eagle at at heart, but um, you know, we grew up in Brighton, obviously my brother uh Miles and an older sister Marissa. Um my dad was an immigrant from Lebanon. My mom came from a hardworking, you know, blue-collar family that sold tile uh that is on our San Marino side, San Bernays side. So um there really was no, I'd say like just coming to CC was a little bit of a different uh vibe just because we were a little more blue-collar, kind of, you know, you you're not getting extra money to go out and you know spend and there was no allowance, and you get, you know, you work with your hands, and it was just it was just kind of different coming out here because it's you know a little bit of a different vibe. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's just it's the first time I really saw money, let's just say put it that way. Um we did grow up in Brighton, we grew up in a nice neighborhood, but I you know, I was driving a beat up Honda Civic, and uh I all of a sudden I saw a brand new raptor pull up to me, so that was new to me, but um that's besides the point. But yeah, growing up was fun. You know, I had a bunch of cousins, brother Miles, who we you know, we always used to wrestle in the living room, and you know, my cousins would come over, we'd destroy the house. It just I had a lot of memories growing up uh in in in my Brighton house. And you know, my cousins live right down the street from me. My neighbors were the Kakicks who also went to CC, David Wright. I had a lot of actually close friends that I'm going to CC as well. So uh I grew up in a pretty good community of people. It's not like I was being shipped off to somewhere I didn't know or who who anybody was. I had a good solid core uh group of friends when I came here.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

That's good, that's really good. So I know uh wrestling's your main bread and butter, but um, was there any other sports besides wrestling that you're interested in?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah, um I I played football for a long time, actually. Um I played football up until eighth grade. Uh, and it was um honestly, football is is is one of my favorite sports just because um it was I'd say the best way to put it. It it it let me kind of understand more my appreciation for wrestling. Um, because with wrestling, there really was no decision-making skills uh on the the coaching side of where you might be a better player, but you're not gonna play because you know the coach thinks that this person's better. So in wrestling, if you beat the guy outright, you know, it's you know there's really no question, right? You're the better wrestler. But in football, I I did appreciate honestly the the fact of that you were on a team and it was more coordinated. And it was the last time that I've ever happened or that's ever happened because wrestling is just one-on-one. You don't really have, you know, if you're a corner, right? You're you know, you're calling out, you know, the linebacker saying, hey, you know, you need to make sure you press coverage, or you know, uh the wide receiver is trying to, you know, do something and you're trying to read his route. And I that's a played corner uh for for a bunch of years. And obviously it's youth and the the level is not that where it is in high school and college, but I I did love football. It was my second love. And um actually kind of funny, we're trying to put together a flag football team for the Olympics for San Marino. So we'll see, we'll see how that goes. Right now, currently, yeah, currently. Currently, it's what sparks that honestly. Um I thought about it. Uh, it just you we did the whole wrestling thing for San Marino, and it was uh that was obviously the sport that we did, so it was a little more successful, but it it's you know, you look at it, it's you know, you have one life, you might as well try it. Uh, we have full um backing by the by the federation. So I you know I shot the text of the federation, like, hey, this sounds like a really cool idea. I see a couple small countries doing it. No, why can't we try this? He goes, Yeah, you know, you have full, you know, full capability doing so. I don't know anything about the he he said, I don't know anything about football. You can do it. So it's like, yeah, I played football for eight, nine years. I think I know a little bit, but we'll try together and put put together a team. Joe Fanning, who is a graduate here, who's a quarterback, and he graduated in 2015. He's gonna be the coach. So we'll see, we'll see, we'll see where it goes.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Who do you compete against?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Dude, we're good teams. So a bunch of wash-ups that played football a long time ago are trying to take on you know teams that have been doing it for a while. We'll see. I don't really know the competition. It's it's it's a lot different, right? For wrestling, obviously, Miles and I were both high-level wrestlers. So it's you know, going to the Olympic field, yeah, yeah, it's tough, but like you know, we wrestled in college, wrestled in Michigan. He was multiple time all American. I qualified for NCAs, one won medals internationally. So it's a little bit different jumping in to that versus like, hey, I haven't played football in 10 years. Let me see if I can compete against you know Patrick Mahomes, who might be playing for the United States. It's more of a just like a cool idea, man. You know, it's yeah, you know, if if if if you can do it, why not? They tried to do get us to do bobsled a long time ago, and I was like winter Olympics doing bobsled, getting hurt, probably not the best idea. So this is this is a little more manageable, so we'll just see where it goes.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah, no, that that's that's fun. It's new and wait, what's the age for tryouts?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I don't know. We're trying to figure that out. So we got a uh we we have uh like a tryout deal where we're like okay, you're you know, you you have to hit these for four print. Like you've had to play football. Yeah, there's there's no excuse on that. Um you have to be Android. No, no, well, you have to be San Bernese, so you have to you have to have San Bernardes to the session. I see, I see. So you kidding me, man. I know I would be calling you know JJ McCarthy if that was the case. But um, or or the people I went to at Michigan. Uh, but it's uh yeah, you have to be San Bernese, you have to play football, and you have to be somewhat still athletic. So we we haven't really seen the turnout. Like two of my cousins, the Cal Hans, who played college lacrosse, like they're interested, and they're actually still in good shape and good athletes. So you have me, Miles, the Cowhans, that's four. We only need one more person, and then we're good. It's five v five. So we got to try to find that fifth person and maybe a couple people to to circle in when people get tired.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Dude, good luck, bro. I'll definitely be watching if it happened. Yeah, we'll see. That that sounds a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, it's not a shot out of a cannon. It was an idea that came to my head when I was driving. I was like, hey, can we actually do this?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

For wrestling specifically, um, besides like your family and wrestling being such a heavy impact on you, why did you really fall in love with wrestling?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Um, that's actually a tough question because it's it's almost like a love-hate relationship. If anybody says they just straight up love wrestling, either they're at Penn State and they're being coached to do so because they win, uh, or it's you know, it takes time to to love the sport because it's it's it's grueling when you lose. Uh it's it's not fun. It it sucks. Uh a lot of the times it's it's it's a not a I would dark place isn't the right word, but it's it's not a great day. You know, I've I've had those days where it's you know, unfortunately, I had them here, I've had them at Michigan, I've had them internationally. Um, and it's like, you know, it's like why am I doing this? But uh I think that the the lessons that you learn in wrestling are are the and you can't appreciate that until you're after after you're done. Because I think a lot of people see the end in sight and you know, they they're happy that it ends, and then they go back and they appreciate it. It's never about the wins and losses, it was never about the medals, it was more about you know the camaraderie with your teammates, being in that environment, being the man in there, you know. So I I I never really fell in love with wrestling until after I wrestled. And I didn't really gain an appreciation for it until after I wrestled because I was like, wow, you know, go look go look at back in my career. It started shooting I don't know, 2007 when I started with Brighton Wrestling Club or Hartland Wrestling Club and ended in 2022 in uh in Turkey when those I didn't qualify for the Olympics. So it was a long career. Um and I started to appreciate it actually more as I grew up because I understood what what what it was to be a wrestler. It was not really my identity, it's just something I did. I think a lot of the times guys conflate wrestling with their who they are and they kind of end up lost after they're done because it's the only thing they've done for 20 years. So I think the the love for it came after it wasn't really during. Uh and I think the appreciation was just, you know, I put so many, so much time into the sport. And during it, I really didn't realize how much it gave me back and how much I learned it, how much people I met, and you know, the relationships I created, you know, the the the matches that I lost and what I learned from those more than the ones I won. I don't really remember the matches I won. You know, I remember the environment, the crowd, and that's awesome, and you'll never get that again. But I think, you know, losing and and having to go back and wake up the next morning, you know, in your bed when your parents aren't there and your brother's downstairs and you got to deal with it yourself. It's just like you can't teach that. That's just something you can't learn by anything else. And it's not like football, it's not like any other sport. It's like you are responsible for losing. You are responsible for winning, you are responsible for the outcome of the match. Yeah, you can say the official and sometimes you can blame the rest, but realistically, it it's always your fault. So you you have to pick yourself up, you have to learn. I mean, Coach Hancock talks about it. It's like, yeah, you know what? The the one thing that I appreciate that he actually said about me winning, but I hate losing better than I like winning. It's true. I hated losing. I lost a lot, but it doesn't mean I liked it. Um, and and I think that's just it taught me so much about life. And I love, I've love, I love, love, love wrestling. It's like one of my favorite things in the world. And I always have a great appreciation for more now after I'm done than when I was wrestling. I mean, I get more stressed for people that that that like that that I know than I did myself. You know, when I was watching camera wrestling, it was more heartwrecking than I was when I was when I lost. So just, you know, it was more of a love-have relationship when I was when I was doing it. But then after, it's just like, man, I can't believe, you know, I I had the honor to do something like this the majority of my life. I'm lucky and I'm privileged to do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

For what's the environment really like when you step out into the arena? Like, how do you prepare your mindset?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Um, I think it depends. So you have the the Penn State ideal, which is like fun. And if people don't know who Penn State is in wrestling, they've won 11 out of the last 12 national titles. So the best team, the most dominant team in college sports, barn on. You could say football. There's no there's no other team that dominates like them. Uh they're the most, I'd say, impressive dynasty I've ever seen in my life. Um, and they're gonna continue, they're probably gonna win it again next year. Or sorry, this year, and maybe probably next year as well. But I think going into that arena depends on the wrestler because some people get stressed out, some people are just like surrender the outcome. You know, they just it's just another day in the office. Some people are just pumped and maybe angry. It just depends on the wrestler. I was more of like, I can't wait to get out there and put on a show. Like I was more of, you know, let's score points, let's just throw it out there. There was no strategy, there was never a strategy. Um, and it was more like, let's just do this for the crowd, because then like that's why why they're here. I'm not gonna win one-zero. You know, I'll lose 13-14, but I'm not gonna lose one to zero. I'm not gonna win one to zero. I'm gonna put points on the board. So I was a little more different on the way I approached it. I did, I did care about winning and losing, but I wasn't gonna let the out the RAF decide the outcome. I wasn't gonna let the other guy decide the outcome. If I was gonna make a mistake, it's my fault. So I think for me, it was a little bit different when I was going into the arena because when I went out there, I I was just prepared for war. So I wasn't never, you know, okay, I'm gonna do this attack and that attack. And I was like, dude, whatever's open, I'm gonna go get it. So that I I just differ in that. Miles probably has a different answer than I do. Cameron has a different answer than I do, but I I I just went out there and just went to war. It's just always what I did.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Were you would you say you're a showman?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yeah, definitely. And in every facet of life, at the podcasts, you know, on TV, you know, AI, whatever, whatever you finance, whatever it may be. That's just that's just my personality in general. You know, I just I do I didn't I'm an entertainer. So you know, that's what I was born to do. That's why I'm on TV, or else I wouldn't be.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah. I uh saw you a couple, I think a couple weeks ago, I saw uh you on ESPN. Yeah, you're doing the analytics. I thought that was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's fun. Honestly, uh it's it's it's for the Big Ten network. So the for those who don't know, obviously, um there's the play by play, which is like the announcing, and then there's the pregame show. So wrestling is one of the few sports in in the in the Big Ten that actually has some pregame show. So it's it's pretty niche, but there's a large audience. So um it's funny because I got started with it out of nowhere. I didn't even understand, like I didn't even understand the stuff. I didn't even know if I liked it. You know, our SID, sort of student director at Michigan, was like, hey, do you want to do announcing? And I was like, Yeah, why not? Sounds fun. And then fast forward three years later, I'm uh, you know, 300,000, 400,000 people are tuning into Iowa Penn State and I'm on television. So it's kind of funny how how fast that grew. I didn't even know it was an interest of mine um until I did it. And I didn't honestly, even while I was doing it, just like again, another day in the office, right? I get to go on this is a privilege. I get to go talk to people through a microphone and they get to listen to me break down my favorite sport. So it was just really cool for me to do, and and I really never expected it. It was not something I wanted to pursue after college.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

What's that mindset mindset like when you're uh presenting yourself on the Big Ten Network?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Oh, it's hilarious because when I tell people they're like, do you prepare? I'm like, no, uh, I don't prepare at all. I didn't prepare for this podcast. I don't prepare. I I I I'm not a big prep pre uh preparation guy. I I think when it comes down to solving problems, and I I I honestly look that look at that in life as problem solving, you know, whether it's finance, whether it's AI, whether it's you know, a startup, whether it's consulting, whatever it may be, this stuff, uh media, it's problem solving. So the more that you have the plan, it's like I feel like it kind of takes away the authenticity of the conversation or the solution. Obviously, when you're going to write a financial plan or you're going to consult somebody, you have to have some ammo, right? You don't want to go in there naked. But what usually you get a feel for it. So I I follow my dad a lot. Like my dad like he does prepare, but he he knows exactly what he's gonna say in every situation. He's a he's a machine when it comes to that, and he's seen everything, and that just comes through experience. So you know, I I've had 20 years of experience in wrestling, but some bullet points on a on a on a TV, you know, on a piece of paper is gonna slow me down. It's gonna I'm gonna lose that authenticity where my brain's pulling this information from. So if I look at a good example, so you look at Penn State, right? I could write all these things about Penn State that's going on right now. But what's what's what's it what's it really gonna take for me to get that experience that I saw when I was there? Penn State was dominant when I was there. I mean, for through 2014, through 2019, only one title did they not win. It was 2014 and Ohio State won. So you're not gonna get that if I'm trying to write down four or five things that you know that might be prepared that happened last week. You want to get the true reaction of how I feel and say, you know, you're the analyst, you're the expert, right? So you you know what's going on on uh you know on a daily basis in wrestling. You watch it. So it's more, you know, cookie cutter when you're it's almost like reading off a prompter. You know, do you trust somebody that's reading off a prompter? Do you trust the guy that's just going off the riff? Like, I'm gonna trust the guy that's off the riff because his gut feeling more that majority of the times me the truth. So when when you go on TV, it's like, yeah, there's some things that I have to reference and some quick thoughts, but most of it, I don't even look at the paper. When I write stuff down, I don't even look at it. I just say, you know, we'll talk about a guy, Luke Lilodoll, who's, you know, 125, just won the Big Ten. It's like, what do I see? I say, well, he's dominant. He he scores a lot of points, he's fast. You know, he he talks about being an artist on the canvas, you know, because he likes to talk about the wrestling mat as a canvas. So, you know, you you loop that in there. And then, you know, you just give your opinion. He's like, hey, Luke Lil is one of the best guys at 125. He's the returning, you know, returning all American. He's the number one guy in the country. I expect him to do what he's supposed to do. Everybody, you know, might might think that George Volk, who was the guy who went against, you know, could could take him out. But everything that I've seen, I don't think that's going to happen, you know, versus I have, oh, he's got a good double leg. He's got a little thing. Like, what would you rather hear? Right? You'd probably rather hear just like off the cuff, off the riff. This is what I think about Luke Lodol. This is what I think about, you know, the 157-pound guy who's a freshman, who's a phenom, which is PJ Duke. So I I think when you're going into announcing, I think when I first started, I did a lot of preparation and now it's just gut feeling. Okay. So I I I I I kind of did a little bit of both, but the more time that I, you know, the more time I spend in an industry or in at a hobby or doing something I enjoy, I say the less prepared that I get because I want it, I want it to be authentic and I don't want it to be scripted.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I like that point of view. Do you have any higher aspiration aspirations for commenting?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

No, I I I I you know, I have a lot of a lot of other interests outside of commenting. I love wrestling, don't get me wrong. And we talked about it earlier. It's one of the the the the the I'd say the cherished possessions of my life, and I'll never forget it. But there's there's other things mentally that that challenge me. And I um, you know, recently, I mean, uh, I've gotten a lot into AI. Um, I I've always been to AI. I was one of the early users of ChatGPT before they even released uh 3.5, 3.0, it was 2.5, and that was in 2021. So I really got stuck in that. I got stuck in crypto in you know, 2020. Uh I did my uh my certificate uh from Cal Berkeley. I met a lot of really smart people. So I think my aspirations kind of like I capped out what I wanted to do at the big if the opportunity came, obviously, you know, if ESPN called me, they want me to do the NCAs, I'm not gonna turn it down. But I've had opportunities to go do it for the United World Wrestling Organization, you know, and I was like, I just it doesn't it doesn't do it for me, right? I want to seek out more mental challenges than something like that. Of course, it's enjoyable, but I want to go into a completely different field that I know nothing about and learn in that field. So I think I think when when it came down to you know trying to continue that career, because everybody asks me that question. It's like, hey, why don't you go do it for your SPN? Why don't you go do different sports? Like, you know, it's just it's it's a devil in a new dress. It's just a different, you know, it's a just a different sport. Yeah, is that a challenge? But I'm like, not not to me. So I I just I I don't I don't want to mean that with any disrespect if the Big Ten ever sees us, but it's uh yeah, they probably won't. But it's uh it it's more it's more of a mental challenge. Well, yeah, hey Big Ten, if you're watching, I will take the job if you give the no, they won't watch it.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Your podcast gets no views.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Well, I mean they're not scon't even watch my stuff, so they they tell me good job, I'm like, what did I do right? They're like, ah, you know, I'm like, it's okay, you don't have to watch wrestling, I get it. Yeah, but all jokes aside, it's just I just have different aspirations. And I I I'm actually a closet nerd. I really the NGOA technology, and um that's what your brother was saying. Yeah, I just you know, AI is just one of those peculiar fields that you just look at and you're just like, wow, like when crypto first came out, I was like, this is gonna change the world. And then you had this all this BS stuff with like, you know, meme coins and all that, and yeah, they have their place. Like the internet, you know, what when it first came out was illicit activity, and you know, every every network needs that to grow. Um, and I think, you know, with blockchain in general, it it did, it did need that, but the prolonged period that it was happening, I think hurt it. And I think you had that that Sam Bakeman-Fried issue in 2022, and you know, you have all this fraud going on. And in the finance guy, I'm not, I don't think any of that's correct. I think blockchain as technology is awesome, but I think that field has a lot more time to mature than something like AI that's moving at an accelerable rate. And it's just it's you see it every day, and it's just crazy. The new things that are coming out with tools, you know. I I I did, you know, uh I'd say two, three years of computer science at Harvard online, and that's how I taught myself to code. And like totally it's not obsolete because you still have the fundamentals, but it's uh it's you know, AI can write better code than I can.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Collotta is good.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, and and I think it's it's it's a space race between these these companies. I think you see Calod, you see Gemini, you see Deep Seek and the Chinese models, which are really awesome because they're open source. For people that don't know what open source means is that if you have a model on your computer, your data's not getting exported and training the models, which is great. Meaning that if you don't have money to buy a collateral subscription or buy a chat GPT um subscription, you can run these models locally on your computer, which is awesome, which I'm huge on. I'm a huge open source guy. So yeah, the the the things that AI can do is it's just uh I think that uh people uh I think there's two groups. Tech tech bros, I'll call myself a tech bro, uh overestimate what it can do. Normal people underestimate. So it's somewhere in the middle. So the tech bros say, well, AI agents are gonna take over the world, they're gonna replace everybody's job. I I I honestly am starting to shift towards the middle, and I don't think that's gonna happen because agents aren't super smart. Um normal people think, well, my job's not I'm I'm I'm in a specific field and it can't be replaced. Well, buddy, go use one of these tools and tell me that you it you can do better work than it can, because it can do higher level work than I can. And I consider myself pretty, pretty intelligent, right? Like if you I went here, I went to Michigan, I went to Berkeley, like I've I've I and you know, I did to the Harvard court. Like, listen, if it can do things that I thought were very hard in a trivial amount of time, like you know, if you're doing a spreadsheet at your work, what do you think that Claude could do? It can do it in 30 seconds, you know, and with 100% accuracy. You know, human error is completely off. So it's it's it's such an interesting. Interesting space, man. It's just it's awesome to see it evolve so quickly, but it's also scary as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

When you first got into AI, did you mainly use it for finance? And what do you now use?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

So I was uh I I'm a creative. Um, I actually was building blockchain applications. I worked with a couple startups. Um, this is more what I did in my free time. You know, most people when they go nine to five, you Doom scroll and do all the other stuff. I'm joking, obviously, but you know, and just talking about your generation, like Gen Z, it's it's kind of funny. It's like you go home and Doom Scroll, it's like, man, with this stuff, I can't. I just feel behind. And it's I use these use these tools every day, and it almost feels like a video game because I I'll I'll I'll be vulnerable a little bit. Like during 2020, 2022, I was a loser, man. I was like playing video games, you know. I was still doing my job and I was good at my job, but like I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

What were you doing? What was your job?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

I was a financial advisor, still am. Okay. And and and probably, you know, plan to you know eventually my dad slows down, run the company. And it's I think everything kind of all meshes together. You know, you have the AI, you have the startup stuff. It's just I'm just a continuous learner. I think I things that pique my interest and I I want to learn about, I go and seek out. So if it's not interesting to me, like you talked about the Big Ten stuff, like is it fun? I enjoy it, I love it. Do I love getting on the plane, going to Chicago, getting dressed up and going to type? Uh awesome. Yes, different kind of interest, different kind of, I'd say, satiation of what it means to be Malchamine. You know, that just can't be the only thing. You know, I have to test myself intellectually. I have to get challenged. I have to say, this is hard, this is a tough problem to solve. How can I solve it? And that AI has been one of those things. It just consistently evolves. It's like, how do I get to the level of the people that graduate from MIT? How do I get to the level of the people that graduate from Harvard or Berkeley or all these places? Like, what do they know that I don't know? And how do I get I'm probably never gonna get to the level, I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

But have you ever talked to someone that went from MIT?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, yeah. Oh, so the that blockchain program, a lot of those guys end up being multi-million dollar founders. So they founded their own crypto companies. Um, one of them uh was called Drift. It's uh it's this uh this exchange. Uh she was in my uh she was in my uh group, but she's uh they raised a bunch of money. It's it's it's it's crazy to see you know people around you that are super intelligent. Cause I like surrounding myself with smart people too, because I'm like, I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

It's yeah, you are the five people hang out with.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, true. Right, very, very true. So I we started AI mastermind um you know a couple couple weeks ago, and you just the the ideas that people bring in, man, it's just like I never even thought this existed. Yeah, we had guys, you know, doing specific things and you know using it for you know the new uh hot things called open claw. So using open claw to do specific things, your brother included.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, so um he's gonna he put me on with Claude.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah, Claude, Claude, Claude, I honestly, the the the thing that I like about Claude and I like about AI is it's like you're gonna have this period where it's going to be existential to for alignment. And I don't want to scare people, but it's but it's the truth. It's like there will be a point with AI that it will be running operations that people, you know, basically are pressing a button to approve. And I think the human error is gonna get more and more, I'd say, irritating for AI that's like, hey, I don't want you involved in this process anymore because you're slowing me down. And you want to make sure as a as a human race that you're aligned with that, you see the Hasgath new, it's like you know, Chat GPT and and and um OpenAI are partnering with the government. I'm like, I'm not, I don't, I don't like that at all because I know the capabilities of this stuff. I mean, you could spawn a million agents at a snap of a finger, and now that it could, you know, do anything you want, it could get people's data, it could, you know, do airstrike. Like it's just the unlimited possibilities of that people aren't thinking about this technology and the people do understand it even higher level than I do, and I feel like I understand it pretty well. Is that the existential risk of using this, you know, there is no go back. And I think as a as the human race evolves with this technology, we have to understand the risks of it. Personal data, huge risk, not really. I really it's not like people make this whole idea of like my social secure number. I'm like, that is not useful to an AI, like at all. It really isn't, but it could be, and that's that's what scares me. It's like if it's used for the wrong things, yes, because now it has your personal data and it can say, well, you know, Nick Ravid lives XYZ here, but I know it's serious. I'm I'm being totally serious. It might seem like I'm joking, but I know, I know we don't know what the what's inside that black box, of course. So you have to be careful, and that's why I like using these local models. You can share it any personal information, it doesn't go anywhere, it stays on your computer. But what how do I know Anthropic's not using my data, which is Claude? How do I know that Gemini, which is Google, is not using my data? How do I know that you know ChatGPT, which is open AI, is not using my data? Probably the 99% question is that they are.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

So it's it's a risk.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I think it's a good risk, though.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Well, what are you optimizing for? Is my question.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Me, I'm what I optimize with, all right. Before that, I I will answer that question, but I did want to ask you a question. But between all the language models for AI, which ones do you rank them like one through four, the main four?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Claude's number one, no question. Uh, and there's a couple of reasons why. So Opus 4.6, which is Claude's latest model, is I I think I I don't want to say this, I don't want to get burned. It's like it's probably the closest thing to AGI that we've had. Um artificial general intelligence. So it can operate on its own, it can make nuanced decisions, and it understands the decisions it makes upon itself. So you go tell it to do a task, it's not gonna mess up the task. It's gonna understand what you want from a small amount of information. So how AIs work is like you have this thing called a context window. This is a called token window. So you have anywhere from 2456 tokens, which is pretty normal, 100k tokens to a million. So a million tokens is like, I I think of it like this is if you have a child, right? A four-year-old, right? A four-year-old or five-year-old can only remember so much. So you're going from a four-year-old to a PhD that that's at, you know, Harvard. That's the difference between 256K, you know, context to 1 million. It's a huge jump. So when you're talking about using an AI model, like you're just behind using the one that's not the most intelligent. So, like, what's the compounding effects of that? So I think Opus 4.6, which is Claude's models, is so far ahead of everything else. Chat GPT is trying to keep up, but to just, I mean, I've used the 5.4, it's just not even the same thing. I can't wait to get, you know, my usage because your usage caps out on a weekly basis. Like mine's, I'll tell you when it is. It's Friday at 12 a.m. Cause I know exactly when it comes back on because I know exactly what I'm gonna use it for. So if I was gonna rank them, it's like Claude's number one. Opus 4.6 is the best flagship model. It's not even close. Chinese models are similar. Um, you have Quen, you have uh Deep Seek, you have Kimi, which is like they're all open source, which is great, but they they basically copy copied the US models, what they call it. It's called uh distillation, which they basically create a bunch of accounts, they prompt the model, and then they steal the information to create their own models. Great for people like us because that you get that same intelligence for free. Bad for those companies that are raising trillions of dollars. Uh but yeah, I digress, I digress. Um, I'd say it goes probably Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, and then everything else, you know, XAI, Olama, which is Facebook, Chinese models. It's just the space race between those three is interesting, but I just think the the gap between Opus 4.6 and all the others just is so large. It's just it's it you can see it in the intelligence of the answers. Like, if I if if anybody's you know, if anybody's gonna use it, use it and you'll you'll understand what I'm saying. When you go home, use Opus 4.6 versus I use it every day. Okay, so use Opus.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

I pay, I like in I saw this one statistic where it's like of the 8 billion people, only like 500 million use AI.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Nobody's using it.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, nobody's using it. And so, like, to me, it's like this is a great opportunity, especially for my generation. I've been telling people on my podcast, um, I had a teacher, I was like, people, we need to be teaching like people to use like pro AI, like they should be classes.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Like, well, if you need an AI guy, I got you. Yeah, use this, I've been using this stuff. Mr. Hancock, yeah. Well, it's just I um You might be the new principal. I yeah, no way. Uh I don't want that job. Sorry, Coach Hancock. But um, yeah, I I I I urge people to use it, but use it in the right ways. Of course. Why I say that is you don't want to use it to do your critical thinking. And I think critical thinking skills are might be all the humans have left after AI replaces the majority of work. And work's gonna look a lot different.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

So you're what do you think's going out first?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

White collar jobs, like portfolio analysis dead, you know, data entry dead. Um any any sort of portfolio, like any any sort of data entry job that computer can do better, human dead. Um eventually you'll see robotics do the same thing in factories. It's it's it's I still think we got a while. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

I think the closest we have is uh Elon Musk's robots.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Oh, you're talking about oh physical AI. Yeah. You know, no no for sure. It's uh that's more that's more of a five to ten year thing. But I think I think generative AI LLMs and agents. So like you have Okay, so AI is in a couple fields, right? You have generative, which is the local your large language models, you have agents, which are basically act upon tasks, yeah. They're task-oriented AIs, and then you have um what they call is like physical AI, which is intelligent AI, which is making decisions and is moving. It's more like machine learning AI. So that's really cool too. Like that's our field I'm starting to explore into with machine learning, which is awesome. It's a really, really cool uh field, way, way different than LLMs. It's a completely different field, completely different set of intelligence, completely different training. Um, but yeah, I agree with you on the that it's probably gonna take a while for the because manufacturing. I mean, you can manufacture AIs in a computer. It's just like and the movement. Well, yeah, the movement. And then I think that honestly, the biggest thing that's gonna hold AI coming into companies. And one of the things that I started recently was like an AI consulting company. It was like, okay, yeah, I know how to do this stuff, I can teach businesses to do what I'm doing, uh, and you know, implement it in in their business. And it the reception has been pretty bad, I'll be honest, because people are afraid of it. It's like, why would you tell somebody they're gonna replace their job with an AI workflow? But if you're the owner of the company and you're like, hey, you know, now I can chat, you know, text Telegram and I'm talking to like an employee, which is your AI, and it's gonna do it's so the problem.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Shut up, bot father.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, well, yeah, seriously. Actually, yeah, straight up. But um, the problem is always going to be is can can the AI do 80% or higher of what the employee can? Because if he can't, it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

But as of right now, mainly, it still needs human uh help. Like you, like you have to like, but like, bro, even with Claude though, you have to type in certain words.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yeah, agents are stupid. I would I I will agree on that.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Is it but so I still think I still think, and I truly believe this. I think I said this, I was talking to uh about this with someone. I think that it's never been more expensive to live in the world, but it's never been more easy to make money. And so with AI, I think you can expand that, you can make money so much faster. And I think uh with humans and with AI that it still needs a lot of human interaction for max capacity, it's the world of solopreneur.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Like now the cost of labor and the cost of I'd say the best word is product market fit, because it's really what it is, is like the marginal cost is zero because of AI. So, like if you're a you know a solopreneur and you want to launch a technology company for what it would cost five years ago versus now, like I remember when I was first developing, I couldn't do front-end development and it cost me $3,000 to get somebody just to make a static web page. I can do that in 30 seconds now with fully interaction, back end, and everything. Obviously, I understand a little more than other people, but it gives engineers way more leverage now than you know, than they had five years ago. You can only write so much code as an engineer, it was you're doing it by hand. The first thing that ever came out was this called MANIS, which was an AI coding assistant. And like you could use ChatGPT to code, but you were really you were copying what the code was on Chat GPT and pasting it in what they called the uh the individual development environment, which called the IDE. So it's that even has changed a lot. So I I do agree that the leverage has increased, but the one thing I will say, and Miles and I have talked about this a lot. The tools have never been easier, but that doesn't mean you automatically have agency. You know what agency is, right? No, explain. So agency is essentially like hard work. I mean it's really is like do you have high agency? Do you wake up in the morning and do the right things? Are you going to it's it's a tech term, but agency is like, you know, is the person gonna go out there every day and test their, you know, test their ideas, go out there and work hard, go out there and be not afraid of failure? Are they going to be ethical? It's just kind of all combined in one. Uh, it's a startup word. You know, do you want to work with people that have high agency? Are they trustworthy? You know, are they gonna wake up? Are they gonna, you know, do the right things? Are they gonna not lollygag? Are they gonna do the hard things? Are they gonna call people? Are they gonna reach out? Like that is not gonna change because of AI. I don't think somebody that's not high agency is gonna become high agency because they have the tools available to them. I actually think the opposite of that, it's gonna make me people more lazy because they, you know, the guy that orders DoorDash at 10 p.m., is he gonna ever make dinner? No, he's not going to. More than likely not, right? So, what how is that same person gonna go start a company with AI? It's not going to. It's gonna give more leverage to the people that are already doing this that didn't, they didn't know how, you know, they were watching the YouTube tutorials, that were, you know, going to affairs, we're going to conventions trying to figure this stuff out. Now they can do it from their, you know, their basement.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Let me ask you a different question uh regarding AI. What do you think of the probably like the biggest scare that people have is the generative pictures? That's do you think that's like useful? Do you think it's like that's like the harmful part of AI?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

No, I don't. And I think I think it's stupid. I honestly think it's one dumber, dumber use case of AI. If you and I love it. Well, for memes and stuff and making fun of people.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Well, I use it for like marketing.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah, but so here's the thing, and I I'll prompt you, and I think that I prompt you, right? Ha ha. But um I I'll uh question you to think about this is that if the cost of art and the cost of code is zero, what makes it special? If everybody can do something, where's the value in it? Correct. There's no value, right? So the the imperfect things, the imperfect art. Wabi sabi. Seriously, that yeah, the imperfect stuff will be valuable. So I think the c of the cost of the creation of art is zero and the marginal cost is zero, the things that take time and take creativity and take thought and that are imperfect and don't look right and look odd become valuable. And I think that's that's huge for artists. I mean, artists are afraid of this replacing them. It's like, yeah, if you were replaced uh afraid of it replacing you, you weren't a good artist to begin with. And that's you know it's harsh truth, but it's a truth. It's same with the uh computer science. You know, if you're an engineer and you're worried about AI replacing you, you know, your code wasn't good enough, or you didn't do the create like because code is creativity too. There's a thousand ways to do one thing. There's 15 different languages. People use Golang, people use uh Next.js, people use Node, you know, there's there's Ruby on tech terms here. Well, yeah, well, just there's a lot of coding languages. There's like the first one was they're basically all C languages, which is the first programming language, and it's built out from there, different toolkits, different tool sets, optimized for different things. So there's a hundred different ways to write one website. Like you could use 20 different, you know, methods, you could use what they call Vite, which is different than XJS. So it's like the web page is gonna look differently. But if you're just so just doing it like everybody else is doing it, what makes you different? Where's your creativity? But as an engineer, you understand that creativity because you're used to using these things, so you have that leverage, it's no different than artists. Yeah, you can well, modern art sucks, I would argue. Yeah, I know I listen, I agree with you. We have lost creativity as a human race.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

But Nana got 4.4 million in auction.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, yeah. It's it's just stupid. I I agree with you. I think AI actually, the the one thing AI does is it exposes for how stupid some things are. Like the day jobs that you're just clicking a computer, it's just a job for the sake of a job. It's harsh truth, but it is. Yeah, so if something, and and it comes down to this if something can do it better than you, your intelligence is used, is better used for something else that AI can't do. So we talk about creativity, like AI's not creative. If I'm I I'll debate anybody on any podcast, any place in the world to tell me it's creative. It's not. And I've used these again, I've used this thing, these things for a long time, and it has not gotten any more creative. It has gotten better at problem solving and helping you solve problems, but it hasn't gotten more creative. The human is the creative. So almost look at it as a paintbrush and the canvas is whatever you're creating. Yeah, so you can't lose creativity. If you lose that, what makes you any different? Employable, startup, you know, art, whatever it may be, if you're doing everything else, you know, in the same things what everyone else is doing, what makes you any different? And that's the thing I'm saying about the gender of AI. It's like, you know, we all can make the funny pictures, we all can make the marketing material, but if every single influencer, every single page is, and you probably, you know, you probably do it for Instagram, right? So like you still have to write the captions, you still have to be clever. There's still a lot of work, creative work that goes into it. It's not I have access to post on Facebook, which is an API. I'm not going to get too technical, but like you can post on Facebook every day. You can automate that. Yeah. And you can have the AI generate.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

On Instagram, you can just uh post, and I'll also post for you on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm talking about even more abstracted. I'm talking about if you have access to what they call an API, it's called application. You know what it is. Okay, it's application program interface. Basically, you're interacting with the application without having to go on the app. Um, you could have an AI have access to an API, generate the pictures, do what they call a feedback loop, meaning that whatever pictures or whatever posts get the most likes or most engagement, double down on that type of content and run it on autopilot. And you would never have, and a human's not in the loop at all. The AI is is looking at data, aggregating the data, and then posting more like content like that. I'm I've done it. I I've I know how to do it. It's it's it's crazy. But you go and look at the content, and it's like it's there's no, it's just there's no heart, there's no soul. And it's like, yeah, it might get likes, and yeah, it might grow your brand. And then this is what people may want, but there's no soul in it anymore. It's like you're making soulless content. So it's like everybody's doing that. It's what are people really gonna keep consuming it?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

I think so. You think so? Okay, so as a marketing, as a marketer who runs like big Instagram pages, like, bro, people just love the memes. Now, I do uh I'm not gonna say the name, but I do own a big Catholic brand. Um, and like those type of people, like they've DM'd me be like, You've helped me so much with my faith. Like, thank you so much for creating this page. Like, so there is definitely an art to it, but I think on my meme pages, like, bro, the people, dude, it's bad though, bro. Gary V talks about it. Uh, he just said, like, rip social media. We're now in an attention economy.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

It is. Attention is the most valuable asset and always will be.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Um, so I think you're great for that.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Yeah, no, it's true. Um, I I I fought it for a long time, I'll be honest. Miles and Nick, honestly, the two people who got me to start posting online. Because I, again, I'm a nerd, man. I like sitting behind a computer. I am a people person, so I like being in front of people. Last thing I like doing is flaunting on social media on, you know, this and that.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

She's so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Well, I've changed. I've changed it. I wanted, I am gonna start my brand the way that I want to. I'm gonna have separate brands. I have a for Money Talk, which is about my finance, AI, which is about AI, you know, and then we know if you need help with videos. Yeah, well, I I do because I'm just like, you know, I just do talking head. So I'm just like, you know, I'll I'll just do off the riff. And, you know, they'll get 400 likes and or 400 views. And, you know, I actually, my largest video, which is hilarious, on on TikTok, was one that was just a straight talking about the BS that I see on AI. It's like, you know, everybody's making a trillion dollars of AI right now. It's not true. Nobody's making any money. They're trying to tell you that they're making money so they have something to sell you. And it was the same people that did it in crypto, the same people did it in e-commerce. It's the same, it's the same snake to sheds its skin. So I know people probably see a lot of that on social media and did you feel like FOMO? It's not a bad FOMO because it gets you to use these tools, but I think people use AI to make money. I don't think that's the right way to do it. I think you should use it to satiate your own interests. And if you make money, great. If you don't, you don't. You have to set the right expectations. So when I when I was launching, you know, Malcon Tech, which is essentially my you know, AI brand, I was just like, what do I want it to be about? Do I want it to be about, oh my God, you're not doing this, you're not gonna make money? No, because that's not me. I don't want to lie to people. You know, if it doesn't blow up, it doesn't blow up, whatever. But I I am gonna get better at talking to a camera, which eventually everybody's going to have to do because that's where the audience is gonna live. I know that as a financial advisor, the assets being inherited are gonna be the who people who are online. And are they gonna trust you or not gonna trust you? Because they might not even want to see you in person, but they know your brand is associated with something they can trust. Yeah, of course they're gonna trust you. So I think there's a couple ways to look at it. Yes, attention is scarce, but I'd rather build an audience of 300 people that trust me than 300,000 that will go somewhere else, and their attention is is sellable. So, like it's gonna be hard, I think, in the future to compete in that space because if everybody's selling the same sauce and they're no different than the other and they're not authentic, it's gonna be tough because you know somebody could spawn tomorrow and sell them the same sauce and they they're gonna go there because this guy's new and he's telling them something different, and you just lost your audience versus somebody who's just like, hey, nobody else is gonna be better at than being Malchamine than Malcolmine.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Or Mitch, you know, well, they gotta fall in love with you.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

But yeah, well, it takes time. There's no quick, like, I think the get rich quick or like the quick growth, like that just doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Of course, I tell everyone that.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Well, it's just compound, compounding. Compounding show is showing up every day expecting just nothing. I I know that there might not be a result today, but eventually there's gonna be a result. They call it actually it's called growth acceleration in startups. It's like, you know, you look at a at a growth acceleration curve, it's not straight. It's usually it looks something like this, and then it's it's just critical mass, meaning that you there's no going back after you reach it. So that this period during the trough might be five years. It's you know, in startups, it's product market fit. It's where you're trying to figure out, you know, how to sell it to people, what the technology does, and it twat they call a thousand iterations. If you, you know, admire Naval, he talks about a thousand iterations of you have to do something a thousand times before it you know turns out to whatever the end product is. You go look at Amazon. Amazon was a bookstore. Now they're you know global freaking commerce, you know, it's huge. You know, Facebook, you know, they still Started off as a social network. Now they're a massive, they're just a network in general. I mean, they're not even a social network. I would I would say it's a dishonest to call Facebook a social network. They're they're a network of people, you know, and and they have so many different products. They became a monolith. You can look go look at multiple businesses. It's like, if it took them 10 years or 15 years, what is it like, what do you think you edge that you have that you're gonna do it in 12 months? So, you know, I think it's good to study that stuff because if you don't expect results right away and you expect them, not even expect them down the road. If you never expect exalts and use results and you just do it for the love of the game, everything's gonna surprise you, you know. And and I think when it comes to social media, whether there comes a financial advising, whether it comes to startups, like you're gonna fail. Things are gonna suck. There's gonna be really bad periods of time where you think that you should quit. But if you make it through those periods, there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of good on the end, you know, and it's the success comes eventually to the guy that shows up every day, not the guy that posts 20 times a day for three days, the guy that's posted one time a day for you know three years. You know, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

As a marketer, I disagree, but yeah, yeah, what I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

No, I mean maybe social media is different, you know. But you have to, I'm saying you have to change your content. I get I get it you can't post well, you you you your brand is a little bit different when you're talking about pages, it's a little bit different than a person.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Well, even with but even with uh people I've worked with who are clients.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

You're talking about Instagram though, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Uh no, just all social media, bro. Really? I think and like because of how rapid things are, and I think literally because of TikTok, bro, TikTok is probably the most addictive app on planet earth. Yeah. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, like we're losing all of our followers.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

So let me let me ask you a question. What what is the secret behind it?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

The one, I think they like the uh the 15 second, the 15 second, you can just swipe endlessly and you can just keep consuming content. And it got so good the algorithm that, like, okay, we like how you like dog pictures so much, we're gonna show you thousands of them. It's like, oh my gosh. Wow, and you don't even have to like it. It's now so good if you just watch it for a period of time, more will show up. That's how good the algorithm is. Now, like I positioned myself where like I know how to tap into that, and I tell clients this like I can get you X amount of views, but you need to post this amount of times, and so uh let me help you do that. And so with um, I had a lawyer who landed a client off of just one reel. Yeah, so it's uh it's very scary and very uh addictive, but it's like um you don't see that changing. I dude, if it's anything, it's gonna get worse.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Acceleration, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

It's like it's like you said, um, and with AI, bro, um, I'm trying to like uh be on top of it because like I'm I could be at risk potentially at losing my job, but I think because I own the I don't think so, man. I think because of the pages and because I'll be the person, um, like the uh it'll be my own business. I'll be like, okay, like I'll be fine. Yeah, but if I feel like if I if I'm not on top of it or if I'm not um learning about it, I'll I'll just be cooked.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, I'm not a content creator, so you this is your space. I don't really know much about it, but I can I can I can almost assure you that eventually people will get tired of AI content because if everybody's doing it and they're seeing the same thing, it's there's no value in it. It's just like I I I like that, you know, Brad Cocker and you might not know who he is, or Michael Smoke, they're they're two guys that I like that I follow. They're just they're just creators and they just have a personal brand. They're they're not a page, they have nothing to sell you. I mean, they do, they have a coaching business, but it's like they're their whole brand is themselves. So I think they do a lot of what they call counterpositioning. So if most people are talking about, oh, you need to do this and this and that, they do the opposite. So I think I appreciate that a lot because yeah, you might not get 10,000 views or 100,000 million views, whatever it may be, but the people that are watching your content are there to watch you. And that that attention is is not scarce because they follow Michael Smoker, they follow Miles and me. They're followed. Steph, Stevan is a great example. So look at Stevan Michich. For people who don't know, Stevan Michic was a teammate of mine at Michigan, he was a four-time All-American Olympic, you know, two-time Olympic guy, you know, Olympic qualifier, won the worlds. His whole brand is wrestling. Everything is wrestling. And then he's got a clothing brand as well. But nobody else is gonna be able to beat, like, you can't compete against Steban in that market. Yes, he does a lot of stuff and he post like he posts once a day on TikTok, he posts on YouTube, he posts on, you know, on Instagram. Sorry, not Instagram, you um did I say Instagram? I didn't say Instagram, I said TikTok, YouTube, you know, you get the gist. Yeah. Um and his whole thing's wrestling. That's it. But like if you were to post about AI, like nobody'd care about AI.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

And that's that's the danger of the personal brand, is it's like you know, if you have other interests, you can't talk about them.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

And I like it it doesn't unless you make your personal brand about many different things.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Well, that's what I did. So I separated them. So I have a separate TikTok for each, so I'm not trying to, you know, the same person, but it's almost have you ever heard of the law of familiarity? Yeah. Okay, so the more times you appear, the more likely people are to either like your content. You you seem familiar to them. It's not like some dude that they've never seen before trying to sell them something, but they've seen you on Instagram. Giuliano Masarelli is a great example of that. Like, people didn't know he was selling life insurance, but they laugh at his content, like, oh, it's Giuliano Masserelli. Like, I trust him. I see him on my Instagram all the time. Like, but he had it took time for him to build that. But you know, he appears a lot on social media because he put number one, he posts a lot. He's very authentic in the way he does stuff and very different. And I've never seen somebody make sales calls with music in the background and life insurance is the hardest thing to sell. Um, but it's like that kind of stuff I love because it's just like it's so hard to to mimic that. And if you try, you can, but you're not gonna be able to be Giuliano Masarelli better than him. Like the thing about pages, I don't argue with Nick. I I just like say it's it's a different niche, is like pages aren't there's no face behind them.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

So, you know, if you have But I'm but I I get what you're saying with the pages, but I'm talking about specifically with personal brands with people who show their face.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Yeah, well, that's hard because it depends on what your personal brand is. You have to niche yourself down a lot.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah, but Gary V even talks about it. He'd said, like, if you want to become a I don't listen to Gary V.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Very Gary V, don't listen to him because he I disagree. I love him. He he talks about there's only one method because there's not. And I'm talking about people in Austin that have millions of followers that have done it. No, there's not one method.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

He's wrong in that, but in the sense he is correct if you're not going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

He's right, but he's like, post 20 times a day. Okay, yeah, maybe. But if this is your only thing that you're doing, yeah. I mean, what else do you have to do today? If you want to be a UGC creator, you know, yeah, you should 100%. But if you're if your job is a financial advisor, a law firm, either work some with somebody with you like you that does it for them, or if you can post one time a day, it's better than posting zero.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Correct. I 100% agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

It's a quality of the content too. So if you're just getting on there and just BSing and talking about nothing, it's two posts aren't going to mean anything. But if it's one very, very good post that has a lot of information and is close to your top funnel, you know, or your bottom funnel, depending on whatever the heck it is. Yeah, it's more useful than somebody posting 15 times a BS. It's just, you know, there's it's it's it's obvious. It's like me trying to, oh yeah, get close to the mic. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

No, I just put it up a little bit. Oh, sorry. My bad. So you're good.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

So I was going off, but yeah, I mean, there is no one method to success. Everybody's gonna find their thing differently. Social media. I don't know anything about social media, I'll be honest. It's not not my space, you know. AI, crypto, finance, I do want to talk a little bit more about crypto. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

So um, you got early into crypto. Uh, how did you get into crypto and what do you love about it?

SPEAKER_00 51:23

Uh, I got into crypto uh through a guy named Dan Osterman. He wrestled at Michigan State. Um, he I actually I take that back. It was 2017, but I didn't really know much about it. Honestly, I'd say when I really started getting ancient. Yeah, 2017 was was when I first got into it. We had a bunch of people buying Bitcoin on like these weird exchanges, and I lost a lot of money and it was not fun. So I had a really bad first experience. But the second experience I had was a guy reached out to me on LinkedIn. His name is Dan Osterman. He wrestled at Michigan State, he's multiple successful businesses in Oregon. Uh, and he like messaged me about Michael Saylor. I was like, you know, this guy's talking about Bitcoin. I was like, what the heck is Bitcoin, you know? Uh and I kind of ignored it for a while, and then I was just starting to read more about it, read the white paper. It's Nakamoto, you know, smart contracts, a guy named Um Nick Zabo, who was one of the the early founders of the technology, which is called BitGold, which eventually became Bitcoin. Uh, and I just fell in love with cryptography. I think it's an amazing technology. I know it's existed for a while, blockchains have existed for a long time, but this is the first iteration we ever saw in practice. Uh, and in 2020, that's when I applied to do the program at Berkeley because I was like, I need to learn more about this. So the tools were not what they are today. It's funny because it's six years ago, but they really weren't. I mean, you could go get the information, but it's hard. There was no AI, there was no search engine optimization to tell you the right thing. When Google didn't give you anything, so I took advice from you know, one of my buddies went to Michigan. He's like, Yeah, there's there's a bunch of courses online, you know, but you can do the in-person, do that. So I applied for the one I perk late and then covet hit. So COVID hits. So I'm sitting at home, like, what the heck am I gonna do? Uh, and they're like, We're gonna still do the course, we're gonna discount it. This was like 10 grand or six grand or whatever it was, crazy amount of money, discounted to like two grand. So I was like, if you still want to do it, it's discounted. So I said, absolutely, I'm gonna do it. So I did that, the it was like yeah one year program, blockchain and finance at Berkeley was a certificate program. I think now it's a degree. Um, and uh that's kind of where it started. And then the rest was history, you know, spend a lot of time in the space, still do a little more hands-off now, just because have you made good money? Yeah, yeah, but I think you know, the money part of it is great. I think the money part is is is nice. I think uh it's pomp is saying it. Yeah, I I've done well, but the the coolest thing I think about blockchains is they disrupt.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

You really are a tech guy.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Yeah, why?

SPEAKER_01 53:40

No, you just love talking about it. I just love it. I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah, I just love it. You know why? Because I I like disruptive industries. I think disruptive industries, I'm a huge Steve Jobs fan. I love Steve. He's one of the best entrepreneurs of all time. I don't care what anybody says. And he just talks about clearing the old and washing washing away with the new. So, you know, I'm eventually gonna be outdated and somebody's gonna go replace something I made, and that's beautiful. I don't want anything to stand forever. It shouldn't. I think that's the beauty about technology is that you always have something new coming out, and the moats that you thought were moats got disrupted. You know, Facebook will be disrupted, Apple will be disrupted. All these companies are eventually disrupted. Timeline, who knows? But go look at Rockefeller, you know, the railroads, oil, that eventually got disrupted. You look at, you know, horse and buggy, auto, like uh um automobile, you know, there's so many industries that got disrupted over time to think that your industry should be protected, even my own in finance. Like, so I have to be proactive in my approach to learn these new things. So eventually when I do, you know, run the company is that I know what's coming and I can steer the ship a lot better than people that just kind of are going through the motions. So I think blockchains are the most disruptive in my industry in finance, because I know how finance operates. You know, you have middlemen everywhere, there's a fee here, there's a fee there. I don't know what this person does. This bank can't move your money. Well, blockchain can move across the world with a fraction of a cent. You know, if I had family in China, I can send them, you know, USDC, which is US dollar, across, you know, a blockchain in seconds and it costs nothing. And they get it and they can spend it. Versus a bank, you have Western Union that charges you a fee, you have these re you know, these remittance businesses, like cashly that charge you a 3% markup. It's just this this industry is going to get destroyed and flipped on its head, and as it should. Um, and I think the downside of crypto, because with everything good, there's bad, as with AI, you have opportunists. And I think that ruined the reputation for blockchain for at least in the short-term future, where you have people that launch these meme coins and stuff. There's no value, fundamental value. They say it's gambling, but I'd say I'm not a gambler, but uh your odds on uh betting on the the Knicks game tonight are better than on a meme coin because at least with the with the Knicks game, and maybe this is an analysis paralysis, you can assess the risk. You know, I know that Jaden Jalen Brunson is gonna score this many points, and you know, they're playing against the Raptors, and the Raptors don't have a good defense. Like I can actually assess the risk, but I can't do that in a meme coin because I don't know who's holding. I don't know, you know, if you spin up a thousand wallets, it could be the same person. And it's just it it honestly tainted you know the the reputation. Well, it just tainted the reputation because all the good stuff, the people that weren't marketers and weren't snake oil salesmen didn't know how to sell the technology to people. And I I think it it's gonna make a comeback. Meme coins will be a thing forever.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

What about NFTs?

SPEAKER_00 56:19

I don't think NFTs were ever valuable. And here's why I I think art, again, is one of those things of where it has to live in the physical world, at least for right now. I can never count out technology in the future. Um, it was new, it was novel, and that's why it ran everyone was just bored, I feel like. Yeah, you just got free money from a helicopter because of COVID. And the people are just gonna drop money in their bank account, you know, you're gonna spend it. They just you see it in finance. It's like, you know, dealing with people I like to call myself a behavioral financial therapist because really what I am. I'm not a financial advisor. Is how can you read people's emotions to how they make decisions in a market? So, you know, when the market's down, people sell, when the market's up, they buy. People want to get rich right away, so they buy penny stocks and buy crypto, but nobody wants to sit in the NASDAQ, or nobody wants to sit in, you know, the the small cap or you know, a structured portfolio for five years and you know, and and it might take five years to generate, you know, good return versus I'd rather get rich overnight. But the problem with that is that nobody ever gets rich. And usually somebody is somebody else getting rich, not you.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

So it's just it's a risk.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

It's it's not even the risk, is that if it was so good, everybody would be doing it. And it's usually not the case. You got to pull back the mirage and just Pudgy's up. Well, NFTs are different, and it's just a different game. You just gotta know the game you're playing. So it's meme coins. I'm not saying you can't make money in meme coins, not saying you can't money make money with NFTs, but you have to know the game you're playing. Of course. You have to know the players that you're playing against. It's almost like poker. It's like if I look at a poker table, I'm not an avid poker player, but I'm not a bad poker player either.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

I love poker.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Yeah, well, you look at expected value, right? What's your what's your expected value, right? It's hard to read if every single person or new person or new NFT that's in, you know, or crypto or it doesn't matter, players. Let's just call them players in the pool. That's more assessed risk. That's more EV. So, how much positive EV can you have in a massive pool? If you're only playing against a couple players, you only have to beat them. But if you're in this massive, let's say unknown pool of information, you can't assess the risk. So you're basically blindly tapping a button hoping that you hit the slot and make money, unless you have some sort of insider information, which I totally am against. I I think that's bias. I don't like it. I've never participated in it. I think it's unethical. Uh, I I I I just I it just defeats everything I do on a daily basis in my job. I think you're you're basically taking advantage of other people. So I don't agree with that. It's another thing. I'm talking about all the bad things of crypto and eventually get to some good stuff, but NFTs are no different than you know, poker or gambling. You're just hoping that somebody else will buy it from you at a higher price and hope. And it's like art, you know, a lot of art's worthless, but it's whatever somebody's willing to pay for it. You know, crypto has evolved in a weird place where you had, you know, these what they call governance tokens, which unvaluable, zero, zero value in them, stupid, dumb. Nobody cares about governance. Nobody wants to go vote on a you know on a proposal when they, you know, they have kids or they they have a day job. They're not gonna be voting on the future of make or do. They don't want to like we were unrealistic in that percent. I was a huge governance token guy, by the way. I got burned, but um, yeah, I was huge on it. The idea sounded great, but it's like, you know, the people making decisions at these companies probably know better than the average investor, which is true. Yeah, you know, you could appoint a governance board of people, and maybe that's that's kind of where we're moving in the future. There's this thing called future archy, which is really cool. But you know, it's very hard to go and look at all the coins that came out from 2017 to today, and there's only a few standing, you know. Yeah, like the kings will always get slain. The only ones that really haven't is Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana. But like everything else, you know, hyperliquid's a new one that's been out in the past three years and it's it's doing really well. But you know, tomorrow, another another decentralized exchange come out tomorrow and just take them out. It's just there's no moat, which is beautiful, but it's also terrible as an investor. It's like you have to be very nimble in this space, other than Bitcoin. Nothing's displacing Bitcoin. Um, and and the and you just have to be so nimble. And it's just like, do you really have the time, unless it's your industry, which it was my industry for such a long time, that I just kind of put it on autopilot. Yeah, buy Solana, I buy hype, and then I'll buy Bitcoin. I just let it go. I don't even look at the prices. You get text messages, get calls all the time about being up and down. Like, I don't have time. You know, I'm I'm so hyper-focused on AI right now. Like, it's the only thing I'm focusing on because I know the impact it's gonna have in my business. I know the impact it's gonna have on people's lives. Crypto is gonna take a lot longer, but I already have that information. It's not gonna change that much over the next couple years. I already did enough education, you know, in the five years that I spent pretty much every day in it, that it's not gonna change that much. But AI, you know, you look at well, just look at the models, they've changed so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

So let me ask you a question. How old are you? 30. In the next, let's say 30 years, as old as you are. How do you think the world's gonna work?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Look, I think it's I I dude, I'd be a line to you if I knew because I I don't know. Here's the the problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

You think it's like the movies and books say?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

No, I don't think Terminator. I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

No, not Terminator, but I mean like Cyberpunk.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

No, I think Cyberpunk. Cypherpunk, you mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Yeah. Um I want to be careful answering this because there's two there's two beasts inside me that say two different answers. One is I'm just being completely serious because it's I see it on a daily basis. This year it could be drastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

This year alone. Um when you open Pandora's box with open claw and AI agents, um, and now the the problems are accessible by these companies, you're going to look at things that we never thought were possible. Um when you're talking about millions of agents, you know, running on a running in a you know in a company or a business or you know, on the downside, attacking people's personal data or websites and you know, and when you're putting intelligence with that, it's just the people that have the most money will be able to have the most leverage. So when I talked about it earlier, it's called tokens and it's called usage. And you know, if you have an unlimited bank account, you have unlimited intelligence. So it's just it's concerning to see the gap between the haves and half-nots. And that's why I'm such a huge open source guy, because I'm like, you know, if you have access to somebody that's 50 to 60 percent of whatever the 90 to 100 percent model is, at least they have something that they can put on their computer to not just defend themselves, but to stay in the game. And it just you just see the moat uh you know disappearing with any sort of business, but then you also see it giving it a low closer. Oh, sorry. You see the you see the head sorry, this is I usually have a headset with this thing on. So just talking, but uh, you just see the intelligence gap uh between these companies increase, but then you also see the wealth disparity with the access to these cool uh these tools increase. So, you know, if I can afford a $200 a month Claude plan, you know, with the best intelligence and somebody can only hurt you know and afford the 20, that's a huge difference. And like that's gonna be the difference between me owning the small business operating with that 24-7, they they can only operate it at eight hours, I can operate it at 60. I'm gonna eat them, I'm gonna eat them for breakfast. I'm gonna put them out of business. Um, and obviously there's there's nuance in there, like a pizza shop, you know, people are gonna go to Marco's pizza because they like Marco's pizza. But if I'm competing in, you know, like a law firm and I can do a lot more and I can take on a lot more clients because of this, versus a law firm that can't, or the accounting firm that can't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

They're cooked.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

They're cooked. They're cooked because it's like if I know that I'm gonna get my you know my taxes done and they're and they're gonna save me a bunch of money and they're using AI and it's gonna find everything that it needs to, why would I be going with the guy down the street if this guy's gonna cut my cost, you know, to do it, because he can do more volume and he's gonna do a better job. Well, the accounting from down the street's gonna lose all its clients. Yeah, it might have some, but you're not gonna get new clients. You're not gonna be able to grow your business at the rate that somebody that's using this stuff, and that's that's the point that scares me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

Is that so that's what you think more the world will look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

I dude, this is like this year. This year, this is like this year, but like think more like future, futuristic like uh utopia, utopia, utopia, flying cars, flying cars, marshalls hologram, dude. The thing that scares me is humanoids. Um it's like people like joke about this stuff. Like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Like, brain cells could play Doom.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

They just I saw that. That was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

So don't play with fire. I mean, I wish this was like a national podcast that people could listen to me because it's like again, it's a chasm. Once you cross it, you don't go back. So if you climb Mount Everest and you have a massive chasm, you don't go back up the mountain when you've already climbed it. This is the same thing as it once you cross over that, there is no going back.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

So we have to be careful with stuff like that because we don't know the outcomes and we don't know you're again, AIs are a black box. You know, you know what LLMs do, right? They predict the next word. So that's that's all they're doing. It's called inference.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

So notebook LLM. Yeah. We use it for school.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

Well, yeah. Well, they're just to predict the next word. We don't know where it's drawing the information from. We could say it's this data set, we don't know the prediction. We can try to understand it, we don't know it. So if you're putting in human intelligence with artificial intelligence, now you're talking about something so abstract that we can't predict it. It's no different than risk in the market, it's no different than risk in crypto. It's like if you can't predict the risk of something, that's concerning. Like, especially when you're putting human intelligence, we don't even fully understand human intelligence yet. We don't know where it comes from. Does it come from the brain cell? Does it come from the mitochondria? Does it come down to the cell level? Nucleus, we don't know. We can't, we can't pinpoint it. We can try, we can theorize, but we don't know. So we don't even understand our own brain, but we're already hooking it up to something that we don't understand as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Yeah, like Neuralink.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

Well, neuralink's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

Neuralink Dude, that scares me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

It does, but I think it does more help than good.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

I hope it's not a Trojan horse to do what I think personally, on a spiritual level, I think I I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:56

Dude, on a spiritual level, and uh I think that goes against God. Teaching.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

I'm I'm a Muslim, so I agree with you. So it's it's it's it's it's it's true. I I think human technology, the brain was perfectly designed. Why would an intelligent designer design it not to be? Unless he wanted you to combine this thing with you. But it's like if you lose, like it's it's not intelligence though. That's why I try to tell people listen, I share the same views as Naval Ravakant. The true test of intelligence is did you get what you want out of life? So it's the only true intelligence because we we do stuff on a daily basis. Somebody's gonna do the same thing that you're doing, somebody's gonna do a podcast just like us, somebody's gonna you know drive my same car, somebody's gonna be a financial advisor, you know, somebody's gonna be do the same thing that Malcolmine did on a daily basis. But what they can't ever do is get what I wanted out of life. If my wants out of life are gonna be different than yours, mine might be to be humanitarian, it might be to have global AI, it might just be, hey, I want to run a company of a thousand people and you know, get closer to God, get closer to my religion, understand more about the world, right? And if that happens, you know, if I die, I'd be okay with it, right? I got what I wanted. Versus, how is AI ever going to get what it wants out of life? It can't. It's not intel, and that's that's why I say it's not intelligence. Intelligence, we we've tried to, as tech people, and I'm I'll be a tech bro and I'll be vulnerable and say that not everything has to be efficiency. Not everything has to be A to B. I don't have to get this done immediately right away. And then the next thing needs to get done right away. Because I think it's a dangerous death loop that you get in because you try to product size and you try to, you know, make everything efficient. Where some things are better off being inefficient. Do I want to be inefficient when I'm spending time with my dad? No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

You want it to be slow?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:36

Yeah, I want it to be slow. I want to enjoy every moment. Do I want it to, you know, when when I'm, you know, spending time with my nephew because I know he's gonna grow up? No, I want that to be as slow as possible. I wish I could slow down time. So it's hard because once you get in that mindset and to to to make everything so efficient, you try to do it everything in your life. How quick can I get to this place? How quick can I leave? I want to get back back in front of my computer so I can talk to my agent. I feel it. And I and I tell myself sometimes when I pray, when I, you know, right now it's Ramadan. So I'm like, you know what, during Ramadan, like this this time of fasting, I'm like, I need to really sit down and think, is this the best thing for me? Right. Because it's and in reality, it's not because everything speed running life is not a smart thing. Be blinking you're 31. And then I'm about to be 31.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

I like I I know I'm so much younger, but I'm like, you say 2017, I was like, dude, that's ancient again.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

You have to graduated from here in 2014.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

Like, bro, like 12 years ago. I was like, I was a little kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

I was like, Marissa used to babysit.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Go to college soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Yeah, yeah. I remember when Marissa used to babysit you guys. It's it's I think to conclude the discussion about AI, because we've talked about it a lot, and it's I'm glad we did because it's it's it's honestly the most important subject that anybody should be talking about right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

Um, it's going to get very weird these next couple years. And people can agree with it, they can disagree with it, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

Well, the people who are like, I would say more anti, I don't like that word. Let's say like anti-AI, those people are like, dude, I just I just pray for them, bro. Because they gotta learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:01

I agree with them though. Listen, you study your enemies, right? It's one of the best things, and Marcus Relius and and and all the, you know, the best general. Marcus Relius wasn't a general, but like the best generals. He was a philosopher, but the best generals they study your enemy, right? And I wouldn't consider them enemy, but the opposition. Study the opposition. Opposition, why are they so pissed? Unemployment's going up, right? Tech companies are laying people off, the economy's bad, we're at war. You know, you go and look at the housing crisis, you can't afford anything, credit's at an all-time high, you know, companies, you know, these massive, you know, insurance companies, you know, are are making hand over fist with health insurance. It's just like you go and look at the world as it is, it's already so inefficient. So AI is going to make it not more un inefficient, it'll make it more efficient, but it'll make it more undistributed. So it's the companies are gonna be the ones making more money, not the people working there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

So that's how it's always been.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

Well, yeah, uh, but I I I think I mean, I am a UBI guy. Um, I'm a capitalist, but I think you need some sort of U UBI in the future because it's going to get to a point where I let's say I'm a uh I'm an account manager for, you know, a I don't know, automotive company. And, you know, I'm used to calling Ford and I'm used to calling GM and I'm selling them parts, right? Um the computer can do that better than me. It it can. You know, I'm basically calling and I'm selling and I'm I'm moving stuff in a spreadsheet. Like to think that an AI can't do that better than you, portfolio analysis. Like, do I have time to now analyze everybody's portfolio? No, I don't. Thank God that's only a small small part of my job, but that's somebody's job. So if an AI can do it better than you, what's the point of you? So I think it it comes down again to purpose and it's going to make humans think more and outside the box, and it's gonna be a rough period. I don't know how long that period is. It could be five years, it could be 10 years, it could be 20 years, but that time of where AI is in disruption, of where it just it's like a snap of a finger, it just goes, and then there's no going back. It's like JP Morgan integrates it. Okay, JP Morgan integrates it. Hey, I'm Swiss, I'm credit suisse. I need to do it. You know, I'm I'm uh BlackRock, I gotta do it. So once one person does it, all everybody's gonna do it because they don't want to be out competed. You see it in software as a service.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

See, since you're wise and you're a tech, but give us something a little bit more tangible. What's one piece of advice you'd leave to a senior?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

Try a bunch of stuff, man. And what you're gonna try today is definitely not what you're gonna do in the future. I think the cookie cutter definition of you know, put boxing yourself in, uh, you know, to a major, to a job, to all this is just I um it's totally against that. I might have a superpower because I have ADD and I can do a bunch of things, but not everybody has that. But um, I do think that putting yourself in a box is never smart. You're human, you're intelligent. God made us in an intelligent form, you know, you're creative. They just don't ever let somebody else tell you what you can and can't do. And it's cookie-cutter advice, it's fortune cookie wisdom. It is, but it's the truth. The nuanced wisdom is only pertains to you know certain subjects. Like, yeah, I could say, Oh, yeah, well, you need to start using AI tools. Well, what does that mean? What if you don't care about AI? What if you're an artist? What if you know your sports? Like, I'm not going to tell you what's best for you. You're gonna know what's best for you. So I'd say be be careful about seeking advice because I can give you advice, but I don't, I don't know, you know, the the nuances of what you do on a daily basis. Because it, yeah, I could say, well, yeah, you should, you know, you should go to school and you should do that. And it's like, if it's not important to you, people have been successful not going to college.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Is do the numbers speak for themselves? Absolutely not. But it can be done. Why not you? You know, I I I I thought school was pointless. I would I I sound like a pompous, you know, person saying this, but I didn't need to go to school. School never taught me anything. I'm so glad I went to Michigan. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me. I obviously need to go to high school because I need to be disciplined because I was not. I think Coach, thank you, Coach Hancock, every day is like my father away from home. Um, but you know, I needed the discipline. But I mean, I always knew I had an interest outside, like school can teach you certain things you need as I say base level, but then you have to go out and seek knowledge. Because I think once you're done with college, like I can't tell you what I learned in college. I learned about a lot of cool stuff. I was a general studies major, right? And I did a little bit of entrepreneurship, but you know, now I'm in technology and now I'm in finance and I didn't go to Ross Business School, you know, and I didn't go to, you know, Michigan's engineering school. I I did this all on my own. So I had to teach myself because it interested me. If I were to sit in a classroom and in some cookie-cutter definition of what it meant to be a business guy or what it meant to be a computer science major, I wouldn't have learned anything because it wasn't interesting to me at the time. So if you're a senior in college, just be very careful about getting an echo chamber on what you have to do. Because if something interests you, right, and it's something completely unrelated to a job, right? What is a job, right? Oh, I'm gonna go work at McKinsey Consultant, I'm gonna go work at Deloitte. Okay, great. Those people that I know are miserable. Yeah, they're making good money, but they're miserable. And time is ticking by every second of their life, and they're losing that time. So when you're in your 20s, you can make a million mistakes. You have no responsibilities, zero. I mean, you could have a family, but as long as you don't have a family, you can get back up. You can start at zero, you can blow up peripheral oil. I've seen it in crypto where guys have gone to net zero, zero dollars and zero cents in their bank account and became millionaires. And outside of crypto, totally different, you know, industry, you know, biotech, you know, uh AI. Uh, I've seen it, you know, a guy do in the plumbing business. He was a crypto guy and he started a plumbing business, millionaire, right? You you have so many opportunities as an entrepreneur now with the tools, the AI tools that don't box yourself in. If you're a senior in high school, don't box yourself in. Enjoy the ride, hang out with your friends, don't take life too seriously. There, there's so many pieces of just small advice that I wish I would have told myself, yes, I was a wrestler, so I had to take that seriously. But even I wish back then, I was like, you know what, looking back at the career and what I had, it's like, I wish I took it less seriously because I was so worried about the end results. And it didn't end up mattering. Nobody gives, you know, gives a flying hoot that you know I wasn't an all-American. Nobody cares that, you know, I never won an Olympic gold medal. I mean, it was important to me at the time, but I go and look back at it. It's like, you know what? It's not who I am. It's something I did, and it's something I did during that period of time, just like crypto, just like, you know, financial advising eventually will have an end. You know, who knows how long, but if it doesn't satiate me anymore, I'm not gonna do it. Uh, you know, AI could be that. It's just I am a very big guy. I'm like, if it doesn't interest me anymore, why am I faking to myself that it interests me? Because if money is the end goal, I truly believe this, and I say this in the bottom of my heart you can make money doing anything. You just have to find that market. So I've seen it in startups time and time again, where people just they laugh at people and they think it's a stupid idea, and all of a sudden this guy's, you know, just sold this company for 100 million. Yeah, it takes 10 years. Well, it just takes 10 years. It's not, it's not easy. You know, AI has been in those hyper-accelerated industries, but you think like, you know, Alex Wang, you know, who runs scale AI wasn't an entrepreneur 10 years ago. You're crazy. He was. You know, he just had nobody saw those 10 years that he was doing. And I think when you're in your 20s, and I just think everyone just tries to box themselves in. And it's like, if you want to do that, go ahead. But I I I urge you that life rewards those who take risk. Life will pick you back up when you're down. You think that you don't have options, you always have options. As long as you stay alive, you're always in the game. Like, there are so many instances where I've seen where people have failed miserably and picked themselves back up. And agency is one of the highest. Like, you have to have agency, you can't not have agency, and you can't give up. So, as long as you don't give up, show up every day. You it doesn't matter what interest Nick's a great example. People were laughing at him when he was making money off social media in high school. They saw it's the dumbest thing ever. Look at him now, he's doing super well, right? It took him a long time, but he found his niche. And and it's crazy because you go and look at any field, like AI was a laughable field. People thought it was the dumbest thing ever. It's like, this isn't AI, all it is is a predicting the next word. Now it's the most disruptive technology in the world. So crypto is the same thing. Blockchain obviously needs to get his reputation back, but it's another one. It's like people laugh at you. They're like, this is stupid. It's just how there's no value. It's just coins on a computer, and now Bitcoin's at $80,000. It's like, what how did we get there, you know, from 2013 to now? It's yeah, it's I I do think that you know life rewards those who take risks. You have to have high agency. Don't box yourself in. I think of the the three things that I would say to any senior.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:26

Thank you. Thank you, Malik, for joining me on this podcast. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

You're welcome, my brother.