Transcript

Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727

From PBD Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 14 min · 26,516 words · 360 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727", an episode of PBD Podcast published January 28, 2026 (2 h 14 min, about 26,516 words). It mentions 22 people, works and ideas, including Artificial Intelligence, Brad Lee, California, Google LLC, Donald Trump.

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on the recent significant developments involving Trump's efforts to rebuild in Los Angeles, a $68 million legal case against Google concerning privacy violations, and substantial layoffs at UPS affecting 30,000 employees amidst rising energy costs. The conversation also touches on workplace dynamics and leadership challenges, exemplified by a controversial incident involving a Levi's executive and employee interactions.

Key takeaways

  • UPS and Amazon layoffs show that even giants aren't immune to economic turbulence—30,000 jobs lost is no small feat.
  • California's permitting fiasco serves as a stark reminder: bureaucracy can turn natural disasters into prolonged humanitarian crises.
  • Gold's meteoric rise hints at a looming economic shift—$172,000 for a kilo? Sounds like a modern-day gold rush!
  • Google's $68 million fine is pocket change; for a trillion-dollar company, it’s like a tip for a bad service.
  • Co-buying homes is the new trend—romance is optional, but shared bills? That's a must in today's economy.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Jennifer Say, Brad Lee, Artificial Intelligence, California
  2. – 30:00: California, Governor Gavin Newsom, Donald Trump, Google LLC
  3. – 45:00: California, Artificial Intelligence, Brad Lee, Amazon
  4. – 1:00:00: Las Vegas
  5. – 1:15:00: Google LLC, California
  6. – 1:30:00: Bitcoin, California, Google LLC, Amazon
  7. – 1:45:00: Amazon, Whole Food, Google LLC, Anthropic
  8. – 2:00:00: Harvard University, Wasa University, New Haven, Princeton University

Notable quotes from "Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727"

  • Of jobs, folks, because UPS has got some 500,000 employees. 30,000 is about 6% of the workforce. Amazon introduced that they're letting go of 14 to 16,000 people. So, we'll address that.
    about Amazon · at
  • Trump administration cancels $30 billion in Biden era loans will address that coalition warns Trump mortgage could shift could spark another two 2008 style crash and that's a story.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Probably sitting there saying like giving away $68. It's not a lot of money to them. Humanity needs to wake up to dangers of AI says anthropic chief.
    about Artificial Intelligence · at
  • Brad, I would like to start off with this story first. And Rob, if you want to pull up this tweet, Jennifer say, so I see this tweet from Tom puts it up. I take a look at it and.
    about Brad Lee · at
  • Local permitting process. California officials are expected to challenge the order. Governor Gavin Newsome responded on X asking the federal government to send funds to…
    about California · at
  • Okay. And so I'll read this to you. What happened? So he's taken over in the area of the rebuilds. Okay. Newsome has failed and Trump is saving the people.
    about Governor Gavin Newsom · at
  • PS announced it's slashing an additional 30,000 jobs on top of the 48,000 jobs it cut last year. The new cuts are all operational positions, including drivers. According to the…
    about UPS · at
  • Brandon Asetto. Yeah. All right, let's get to the next story. Google settles lawsuit for $68 million following allegations of secretly recording smart device users. Okay, this…
    about Google LLC · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Brad Lee — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at
    Featured guest brought in to react to leadership, politics, layoffs/AI disruption, and privacy stories; he gives direct management advice (fire disrespectful employee) and career advice (use AI, move toward commission-based roles).
  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political figure (policy actor) · 3 mentions · first at
    Central to multiple segments: wildfire rebuilding/permitting intervention, federal leverage over California, immigration/ICE backlash, and broader governance comparisons used to discuss leadership and bureaucracy.
  • Governor Gavin Newsom — Person · Referenced political figure (criticized leader) · 4 mentions · first at
    Used as the primary example of alleged state-level leadership failure around California wildfire recovery and permitting delays; contrasted with Trump’s proposed federal intervention.
  • Jennifer Say — Person · Referenced business leader (case study) · 3 mentions · first at
    Her tweet about confronting disrespect and turning around Levi’s marketing is used as a leadership case study to discuss authority, feedback vs. insubordination, and decisive personnel actions.
    So, Jennifer says, When I became the CMO of Levis's at about two months in, I had some mid-level know-it-all come into my office, tell me everyone hated me. I was steering the ship into oblivion.

Companies & orgs

  • Google LLC — Company · Business focus · 12 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of a lawsuit for secretly recording users.
  • Amazon — Company · Business focus · 11 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of layoffs and its partnership with UPS.
  • UPS — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Discussed in the context of layoffs and automation.
  • Anthropic — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of AI dangers.
    Probably sitting there saying like giving away $68. It's not a lot of money to them. Humanity needs to wake up to dangers of AI says anthropic chief.
  • Wasa University — Company · Educational institution · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of tuition changes for families.
    That gold bar, Yale goes tuition free for families making under $200,000.
  • Nvidia — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing as a major company.
    Unfortunately he lacks on leadership. He does run one of the biggest companies in the world. This company is not called Nvidia. This company is not called Apple. It's not called Google. This company is called California.
  • Whole Food — Company · Business focus · 6 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing.
    Is it Whole Foods or is it which one is it?
  • Harvard University — Company · Educational institution · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing.
    Tom, so I have a little bit of a contrarian view on this. I'm a little skeptical because Harvard and Princeton did the same thing very recently.
  • MIT — Company · Educational institution · 2 mentions
    Mentioned in passing.
  • Princeton University — Company · Educational institution · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in passing.
    Tom, so I have a little bit of a contrarian view on this. I'm a little skeptical because Harvard and Princeton did the same thing very recently.

Products & tech

  • ChatGPT — Product · Technology topic · 3 mentions
    Mentioned in the context of AI tools.
  • Gold — Product · Investment topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed as an investment that has significantly increased in value.
    And we got a we got a text from Hberto at 6 a.m. gold is now $5300 an ounce. So if you bought a kilo of gold a few years ago for $52,000, this morning it's worth $172,000.
  • Bitcoin — Product · Investment topic · 9 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing as part of a discussion on investments.
    What's more likely to happen in the next 10 years? Bitcoin goes to a million or gold goes to 50,000.

Concepts & topics

  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    Central theme of the episode, discussing the impact and future of AI in various industries.

Places & events

  • California — Place · Setting · 24 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of governance issues, wildfires, and federal intervention.
  • South Florida — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the location for an upcoming event.
    Having said that, folks, once a year we host an event called the sales leadership summit. That event is coming up in the next two months. It'll be in South Florida at Trump…
  • Las Vegas — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the hometown of a guest.
    Brad Lee, it's great to have you on the podcast.
  • New Haven — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in passing.
    Don't believe they're required to pay taxes or certain portions of taxes. Like I'm from New Haven. It takes up the entire city. the entire city's decrepit because of Yale…

Full transcript with timestamps

seconds. Did you ever think you would make it? Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright.

My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here. You are one of one. My son's right about this.

All right. So, we have a special guest here with us. He's probably one of the best looking guys out there in the marketplace doing content and he's a very good communicator, smart, successful businessman from Las Vegas. Brad Lee, it's great to have you on the podcast.

Thank you for having me. And uh we've spoken over the years many, many times. you you came to our office in Dallas maybe 10 years a No, Brad. Yeah, 10 years ago. 15 16 something like that and then the relationship started from there. But we'll learn more about Brad here in a minute and get into stories. Uh there's an operator that became the president of Levis's. She tweeted something about one of her employees coming to her office, putting her foot on the table, saying, "You're a horrible leader." Tom retweets it. I read it. I reach out to her. We have to talk about this because I want to get your thoughts on how you would react if somebody would put were to put their feet up on their table. And I said, with only one exception, I would be okay with it. If they're willing to put their feet up on the table and they're wearing brand new FLB shoes, I may entertain it.

Aside from that, I'm not okay with it. Now, let's get into the stories. UPS just announced they're uh laying off 30,000 employees. Another cut. And that's a lot of jobs, folks, because UPS has got some 500,000 employees. 30 30,000 is about 6% of the workforce. Amazon introduced that they're letting go of 14 to 16,000 people. So, we'll address that. California, something very interesting happened. Can you imagine how embarrassing has to be that you're the governor of a state and you're doing such a horrible job with permits after people lost their homes and you can't even get involved in your own city, the big cities, Palisades, LA to get these people permits. Only 200 people got permits, 13% of them and only 10 homes have been rebuilt from the fire that the president finally says, "Listen, this governor, the state, whatever his name is, we're overlapping. We're going to come in and expedite the permits to the people. You

can take your time. Horrible, horrible look while this is taking place. And on the other side, Tim Walls from Minnesota is having a conversation with the president saying, "What can we do to make this place good?" Jacob Fry even talked to the president allegedly then does something dumb that to the point that the president had to tweet about it today on hey, can somebody knock some senses into the sky after the conversation we had? He can't say stuff like this. This is a he's playing with fire. We'll talk about that as well.

Trump administration cancels $30 billion in Biden era loans will address that coalition warns Trump mortgage could shift uh uh shift could spark another two 2008 style crash and that's a story that both Tom and uh Brandon want to talk about President Trump signs the executive order we talked about that uh he Trump shifts on immigration crackdown uh as ICE backlash intensifies prediction market traders uh place odds are government shutting down to 80%. That's Koshi. We'll address that.

And then Netflix. Um it looks like it looks like Netflix is probably going to end up buying um uh what is it? Time Warner that they're looking at and and we know Paramount and Ellison's wanted it, but I don't know why they keep pushing it the other side. There's a good story here about Disney CEO succession drama is hurting the stock price. I agree and we'll talk about it because some things also happened January 1st with somebody that's no longer there which is a good thing but we'll address that as well in regards to leadership. Gold I woke up this morning and we got a we got a text from Hberto at 6 a.m. gold is now $5300 an ounce. So if you bought a kilo of gold a few years ago for $52,000, this morning it's worth $172,000.

And our previous insurance company still a part of it till August 1st. We used to give away gold bars to people. Give away gold bars. I hope you all kept it. I hope you didn't sell it. So if you sold it, somebody's now sitting on at $172,000. that gold bar, Yale goes tuition free for families making under $200,000. And then in the disclaimer, no students will be accepted from families that make less than $200,000. Obviously, that's a joke, but we'll see what'll happen there. Google, which said this may be the biggest story that's going on, settles lawsuit for $68 million following allegations of secretly recording smart device users. What?

Recording you? Is that what happens when you talk to somebody and all of a sudden the website comes up of a product you were talking about? Maybe 68 million. To be honest with you, it's not a lot of money for a company that's worth a couple trillion dollars. So they're probably sitting there saying like giving away $68. It's not a lot of money to them. Humanity needs to wake up to dangers of AI says anthropic chief. Health insurance. This is a big story that we'll get into as well. Tom's got some thoughts on this. So does Brandon.

Health insurance is now more expensive than mortgage for these Americans. Who are these Americans? We'll address them. Co-ying is rewriting home ownership and romance is no longer required. You know what co-bing is? Me and Brad are 23 years old. We're hanging out. We're partying. We're having a good time. And we said, "Why don't we buy house together? We're not partners. We're not married. We're just buddies. And we buy a house together." That's apparently becoming a thing. I don't know if I like it, but we'll talk about it uh especially when you're doing it uh a bit early. And then we got a couple other stories that we'll get into why your bills, utility bills are out of control.

It's not just the Arctic blast or AI. And one in five Americans can't afford their heating bills this winter as people are blindsided by utility costs. I got a couple other stories here if we'll get a chance to get into it. Apparently, there's a new competitor to Tik Tok that just came out that everybody is talking about. It's number one right now in apps ahead of everybody. Everyone's download downloading it because they're worried what's going to happen with Tik Tok. We'll address that as well. This morning we were trying to get a couple handles.

Apparently those handles are taken. So we'll see what happened with that. Having said that, uh folks, uh once a year we host an event um called the sales leadership summit. That event is coming up in the next two months. It'll be in South Florida at Trump Dorell and it's for those of you that run a business because sales is king. Most people don't understand the power of developing sales leaders that develop sales people. This video will break down what's happening at SLS. And hopefully those of you guys that are doing a million plus, you'll get a chance to get a ticket for yourself. Go ahead, Rob.

Play the clip. So many years ago, I realized the size of your income, your net worth, your lifestyle is a pure reflection of the size of problems you solve. So for me, going back 20ome years ago, I was a good salesperson. I learned how to sell. I knew if I ran three, four appointments a day, I could sell two, four, six, maybe eight insurance policies on a given day. Then I asked myself, how do I sell 50 in a day? How do I sell 100 in a day? There's no way I can do it by myself. I have to solve a big problem and go from being a saleserson to being a sales leader. By the way, it is very different being a salesperson than being a sales leader.

That's a massive problem to try to solve. What happened later on, I went from selling two to three policies a day personally to eventually we sold 1 million insurance policies with our company and we sold that company for $250 million three years ago licensing 60,000 insurance agents. We solved a massive problem. Got paid massively. Let me bring it back to you. In America today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we have 13.4 million salespeople in America that go out selling every day working for commission. We have 132,000 VP of sales according to LinkedIn and we have roughly 8,000 chief sales officers in America. Now, when it comes down to putting the hat on of being a sales leader, it's very different.

accountability, tough conversations, challenging, transferring your knowledge on how to get referrals, how to follow up on leads, how to properly follow up where you don't offend the person, the script you use when you DM versus when you email, which is when you make a phone call, how to give better presentations, the types of phone calls to make, the types of contests to run, how to hold them accountable and drive them and not upset them and they still want to come. How do you steer competition? All of this are things companies that solve big problems that become multi-billion dollar companies do. So once a year I host a conference called a sales leadership summit. This happens once a year. To attend this you need to do a minimum of a million dollars a year and have five salespeople that report to you. If you want to join us at this year's sales leadership summit that happens end of March, we'll

go through a 200page manual together on how to go through A through Z of being a great sales leader. Click on a link below, fill out the information. One of our representatives from the David Consulting will reach out to you and tell you more about the sales leadership summit.

Rob, what is the uh website to go to this? Do we have it in the link? We do. It's in the description. It's also in pinned to the chat, please.

Can you click on the link just to see what it looks like so everybody sees it? So go if that's you, click on a link. We'll spend two days together at Trump Dorale and we go through a throughz and it's a great place to network with other performers that are also doing well. There you have it. So what's the website called Rob?

SLS.betdavidconulting.com. Beautiful. All right. Fantastic. Having said that, let's get right into it. Brad, I would like to start off with this story first. And Rob, if you want to pull up this tweet, Jennifer say, so I see this tweet from Tom Tom puts it up. I take a look at it and I said, "I think we need to read this on the podcast on Business Wednesday and let's process it together and let's see how the audience also reacts to this." So, Jennifer says, "When I became the CMO of Levis's at about two months in, I had some mid-level know-it-all come into my office, tell me everyone hated me. I was steering the ship into oblivion."

She told me everyone knew I was doing a terrible job. The brand had been in decline for over 10 years. when I had done in my first two months says no one could go on trips. This is what she said. Say no one could go on trips anymore unless they had a roll out the photo shoot or event. No more boondoggles. So this is like we're just going to hang out and nothing happens. No drinking at events or concerts. We were hosting. We were there to work not party. Says marketing needs say marketing needed to uh feature factual actual product in the ads. say we needed to move away from dark and moody and into the realm of fun because people have fun in jeans. Awful, right? She wanted me to know. She said she was trying to help. She put her feet on my desk while saying this. Needless to say, this was not a person who was very good at her job and I wasn't doing mine to be liked. So, I didn't care if everybody

hated me. I was trying to turn a business around that had been fallen. Flailing. I took the responsibility seriously. Six years later, we had a very successful IPO. Two years after that, I became the brand president. These people complaining about a new leadership are lame. They always do it. They want it how it was. Even if how it was wasn't working and it was even lamer. It's lamer that Variety writes about it. She's talking about Barry Weiss. So Brad, has this ever happened to you where you're in a leadership situation, you come in, you're trying to change things around, and somebody sits there and tells you, Brad, you have no clue what you're doing. This is not the right way to do it. Your team doesn't like you. You got to change. You got to listen to me, Brad. I know what's good for you. How do you handle it if this has ever happened to you before?

Well, I mean, it has happened. Most definitely. Uh the way I handled it was to just ultimately get rid of the individual because that's a clear indication that you've got an enemy within the ranks, especially if they're putting their feet on the desk. Like, that's just straight disrespect. And uh again, I think if you have confidence in in where you're going, you know, you just keep pressing forward, distractions are inevitable, but I just eliminate the noise

immediately. Immediately. So, you're not even giving this person a second chance.

If if they were the one that knew everything, they'd be in the seat I'm in. Okay, fair enough. Tom, where you at with this?

Well, I agree with that and more. Uh I love the fact that Jennifer SE went out to say this and to encourage people that are coming into a business to turn it around and the fact that the business was flailing and not doing well means people weren't doing their jobs and then this person puts their feet up on my desk to tell me about this and to completely assure any modicum of respect for what my role is there. That's three strikes. You don't leave my office with a job. I would just say respectfully this place hasn't been working. You were part of it. I love the fact you're putting your feet up on my desk and you're trying to tell me how to do it.

I'm going to save several steps here. You are an atill employee in this country. And guess what? I am relieving you of the terrible obligation to get up and be to work on time. It stops here. I'm serious. I would conduct a smooth, elegant departure discussion at that moment. Jennifer say coming out and talking about this. This is bold, you know, and and Jennifer Jennifer is a liberal. She's a self-identified liberal, but she's a leader talking about doing the right things of leader. You don't have to agree politically with people and people to do the right thing and to drive your organization. It I think conservative values help. I think adherence to capitalism helps. But you don't have to be all that. Look at what she did. I love this and I applaud it.

By the way, it was bold. She started a brand called XXXY, okay, which they run. married, husband, four kids, used to be a great gymnast herself in the past, champion, broke her leg. Some very difficult videos of when you watch it, how she injured herself. Her dream was to go be a gymnast going to the Olympics. But you know, you know what this reminds me of, Tom? Here's what it reminds me of. It reminds me of a few different stories and and that's why I was, you know, when when you are building a business. The other day a guy sends me a min and he says, "Hey, my boss is telling me if you think you can do it better, go do it better. But you would do in a better position at the job that you have right now. And if you stick around here long enough, eventually you may have He's been with the company for 10 years. No equity, no profit sharing, no LTIP, nothing." And he's kind of upset. And he says, "What

do you think? Do you think I should go start something or stay here?" I said, "Let me tell you how the market works. The market is brutal. The market will tell you who is right and who is wrong. If you want to be right, go prove it. But maybe he's right. Maybe you're right. But someone's going to be right and someone's going to be wrong. Years ago when I was becoming a broker, this is I'll give you the exact month. It's December of 03. I become a broker and one of my guys that uh you know was one of my best guys. He has a choice to stay with me or he has a choice to go work with somebody else. That was the exchange when he become a broker. His name is James.

Good-looking South African guy. Prospect him and his wife at Universal Studios while they were making out in the elevator non-stop. They're kissing and I'm with my girl at the time. I'm like, they're kissing for 30 seconds where it's getting a little bit uncomfortable. You know, Brad, when somebody does that in front of you, you're like, can you kiss for a second? Maybe 3 seconds. 30 seconds macking. Right. I said, are you guys okay? I said, what's up with an elevator?

We just got married tonight. I said, 'You guys just got what are you doing at Universal Studios? Well, we just, you know, we kind of did it. We didn't tell the family. I said, 'Okay, I recruit the guys, a future commodity broker. He comes in. I'm a greenie getting into the insurance space. And he says to me when I got promoted, Patrick, let's face it, we both know her and I are going to be way more successful than you in this business. We helped you become a broker, but there's no way we want to work with you. We're going to go work with this other lady named Jamie.

And I said, uh, okay. Listen, it's your choice. I can't do nothing about it. Tom, this is uh uh December of 03. How old am I? I'm 25 years old. I'm looking at this guy telling myself this mother, you know, I'm just going off of my mind. I said, "Okay." But there's a part of me in my mind, guess what it's saying? Saying, "Maybe he's right." Right? What if he's right? What if this is going to happen? And then guess what happened? Three years later in the market, you know, it was it was not even a conversation. I don't know where he's at. that I think is in Vegas right now.

Sweetheart of a guy. Love the guy. Was a great guy to hang out around. But Jennifer had to go and prove the fact that I'm the right leader for this company. If she didn't, the other person is right. So, good for Jennifer for doing that. Sometimes as a leader, you have to make tough decisions. Even though your team may not support it in the short term, but midterm, long term, you may you're going to earn a lot of moral authority and respect if you end up proving your philosophies right. That's exactly what she did. And and I'm proud of this story I wanted to share with them. Brad, do you want to add anything to it?

I want to know what happened. What' she do? Did is the person fired? Oh, she fired him right off the bat. Perfect.

Yeah, she fired him right off the bat. And uh obviously she wasn't there longer and now you know she ended up

she became president of Levis's. Yeah, that's pretty big. Now, um question like to slightly play devil's advocate. Where's the line between giving feedback and being I know I know there's disrespectful things in there, but um you know you're not saying that you're like just straight up against feedback and um you know pointing out blind spots, right?

Let me give you an example cuz you're you're a national security guy with politics right?

Trump gets in first term, everybody tells him, "Listen, this isn't New York. Remember when he first got in? This ain't New York. This ain't real estate. Here's how we do things."

And he's sitting there saying, "You're part of the problem. M you are the establishment. You want me to listen to you? You're out of your flipping mind and that's the fight

with the people that are part of the country club mentality that this is what we do and I got the car. Don't ruin our lives because we get to take advantage of all this other stuff. They said, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm here. We're changing the rules." And obviously there was a massive disruption. So, but be respectful.

If somebody wants to give an idea to us, you give me ideas all the time. We sit down, we have conversations. If you're respectful, they'll entertain it. putting your feet up and saying nobody likes you and all this other stuff. You better be right about what you're talking about. Let me get to the next story here. This is another guy that thinks everybody likes him, but uh uh unfortunately he lacks on leadership. He does run one of the biggest companies in the world. This company is not called Nvidia. This company is not called Apple. It's not called Google. This company is called California.

And his name is Gavin Newsome. And his state's got kind of a lot of problems. Rob, is that a clip of what's going on in California?

Yes, sir. It's so bad, folks, that the president tweeted something that we have to address today on the podcast. Rob, go ahead and play the clip. Go for it.

President Trump has signed an executive order, which the White House claims will speed up rebuilding after the wildfire disaster. The order aims to allow residents who are using federal emergency funds to rebuild to bypass the local permitting process. California officials are expected to challenge the order. Governor Gavin Newsome responded on X asking the federal government to send funds to rebuild, not take over the permitting process. LA County Supervisor Katherine Barger issued a statement saying she welcomes any effort to responsibly accelerate rebuilding. She says LA County already has a self-certification process and a streamlined approval process for modular factorybuilt homes and pre-approved plans. LA Mayor Karen Bass called the executive order quote a meaningless political stunt as she sent us a statement that reads in part the president has no authority over the local permitting process but where he

could actually be helpful is by providing the critical FEMA funding we have been asking for by speaking and by regulating the industries that he alone can impact. Why give money to an organization that is a cluster? You know what? Why why give money to somebody like you? Brad, did you ever live in California or No,

once. Yes. Okay. And so I'll read this to you. What happened? So he's taken over uh in the area of the rebuilds. Okay. Newsome has failed and Trump is saving the people. Only 2500 homes have received permits of the fires. That's 13%. Less than 10 homes have been rebuilt. He's coming and saying we'll accelerate the permitting process if they do that. And I'll ask an open-ended question. One, how do you think Newsome handled the fires and you know the rest of the bass and others handled the fires? And what do you think about the story with Trump taking over?

Well, I think someone needs to. It's clearly uh evidence of local government failing if you ask me. Um which is obvious and I think everyone knows it. But ultimately, you know, I think where's the money coming from? like where's the insurance liability uh insurance company's participation? Why are people being screwed basically and then holding back permits? That's just bureaucracy. That's just stupidity. I think I'm glad uh Trump's doing it. And someone needs to do something with California cuz that's one of the I mean as far as weather and and you know environment, it's just a unbelievable place to live and and they're just literally ruining it. Where'd you live in California?

Well, when I was there, I was in Rita. Really? Yeah. Like Sea Sun. Northridge. Northridge. Chadzsworth.

Oh, wow. Right around there. What business were you in in Chadzsworth? Because Chadzsworth was famous for some unique industries back in the days.

What was it? What was it? Chadzsworth at one point. Wasn't that what year were you in Chad?

You thinking you saying porn? But it was at one point 80% uh I don't know if you knew this or I was the manager of Ballet Total Fitness and Chadworth

and all our members were part of that space but Tom went to CISA which is in Rita so we have something in common. We all lived in the same area. What year was this when you lived there by the way?

Oh man it's got probably um 89. 89. Yeah. I was I was I went down there to to I got a part in a movie and thought I was going to be a movie star. So, I went down there and uh ended up ultimately homeless on a on on a beach. And so, the way you get off the beach is you find a girl that doesn't that's not homeless. So, I ended up moving o over there because that's where she lived and she

live where in Rita. Yeah. Got it. And she allowed me to stay there. So, I just went wherever I was welcome.

Tom, your thoughts with what's going on in California. Oh, this is a this is like a Tom Petty song. She was a good girl living in Rita.

Yeah. Um my thoughts on it as somebody has to By the way, Brad, just so you know, Tom's trying to be a comedian and he succeeds 10% of the time. I just want you to because the audience already knows it, but he's really trying to do his working on a standup game.

If you look up the uh the earthquake that happened there, I was there when that happened. So 94 whatever year that was.

89 Whiteros. Yep. Was it 89? Man, I'm I'm uh pretty good at recalling then because I

89, Tom, what is that the big one? Because the big one was 94. No. Yep. 89. Oh, you're talking about the San Francisco.

No, I'm talking about the one in Northridge and it like cuz I was there. It threw me out of the bed. Yeah.

Literally, I was in bed. And that was 94. 94. And it just the the earth shifted so so violated.

I ended up on my ass. Damn. Tom, California. What are you thinking? You had many people in the same position. California, I think the president's doing the right thing. He's got to unclog the cork because we've talked about it. Uh Adam Corolla has talked about it a lot of Adam Corolla was on this podcast talking about it about what's going on, how they're holding it up. Malibu, they they need to be honest about it. The Malibu homes on that are on the beach right below Pacific Palisades. The Coastal Commission is trying to prevent that they were ever be rebuilt. Adam Corolla has called it out. I call it out then up in the area which was a a neighborhood and by the way you could debate the beach. You could the city could debate but they're trying to take those Malibu homes away and prevent anything from being built there using the authority of the coastal commission up in Pacific Palisades. You just saw the video that

we showed. There's cleared areas. There's old foundations just sitting there and people waiting to get rebuilt. But the permitting process is taking forever. It's the bureaucracy of downtown and they are hoping for defaults so that developers favorable to the city can buy tracks of it and they want to put affordable housing up. Let me translate that. They want to put apartment buildings up because they feel like they need more units for uhoh here it comes homeless. So these agendas coming from the city. So there's the bureaucracy and agendas coming from the city. And what happens is just like when that young man did a simple video in Minnesota and exposed all the fraud that was going on there that triggered a lot of the mayhem. Guess what the president by unclogging this is about to expose agendas by the coastal commission.

You think he's going to do though? I What do you think he's going to do? You think you think it's going to be like permitting the way he said I'm going to give nuclear permit site within 3 weeks? You think it's going to be that fast?

Two things. He has the power of the purse because California is a consumer, not a contributor of dollars on the federal stage. California consumes a lot of dollars now. Their Medicaid is bankrupt. They bankrupted hospitals. They need federal money and grants flowing to them. That's why Karen Bass, the mayor, says, "No, no. Why don't you send the money through FEMA?" But in FEMA, they list where the people they list the organizations in FEMA. There's a bunch of NOS's that have nothing to do with the fire area that have everything to do with downtown LA and you know more money going to not solve the homeless situation. So what the president can do is by holding up money and pushing this way say I'm going to do it. He's about to shine a spotlight on it because he can hold back funds to California if they don't cooperate with the order. You have no authority here. Okay. So you're saying you're not going to cooperate

with it? We're not going to do that. You you take us to court. Okay, well, let's do this. Turn off the valve. Turn off the money. Hold things back. And that's exactly what's about to happen. Chamath was tweeting about it last night. There's a lot of people that are cheering this saying this is the pressure that the that the president can bring on this,

Brandon. Yeah, I was going to say the um the exact same thing in part. So, it's 33% of California's budget that comes from the federal budget. So, yeah, he's got the ultimate lever here to put pressure on them. And I mean this is like my god this is just layers and layers of helplessness and problems for the people there. I mean the people who are trying to rebuild and can't get a permit are people who could afford a rebuild. I mean it's already what $800,000 on average for a house in California. So those are probably $2 million homes. A huge percentage of them weren't even covered by insurance because their insurance got pulled or retroactively said they weren't going to cover it. So you know just getting the permit to build the thing is probably for a small portion of people. A lot of people can't even pro like probably rebuild it if they did get the permit. So, you know, the fact that they're making it this

difficult for them, I think that is a screaming um verification that there is something weird here where there's an agenda to build something different, make it fundamentally different than it was before because it was a residential thing before, you know, now they're probably trying to make it like some section 8 type of situation. So, uh yeah, I think the lever here for him is to cut off that 33% of their money that comes from the federal budget because it's a it's a disaster state.

What What happens if he succeeds? What happens if he succeeds? What happens if he pulls it off? What happens if all of a sudden Californians are like, "Uh, I got my permit within 2 weeks. I got my permit within 30 days. Now that the president took over, I got my Fair Act money that came through. It was much faster. I got this." What happens if those things expedite?

5% shift in California popularity or so. Yeah. That's it though. I think so many people are so blindly against him that it wouldn't move the needle that much. But I think more California people like him than we know of. I think their voting is very

Brad. What do you think would happen? I I would agree. I mean, you know, people are just going to realize that a lot of the excuses, you know, were were bureaucracy and so they're they're going to lose trust in the in the

in the state of California, the politics. Yeah. But I think it's happening anyway. You know, I think again there's more, like he said, there's more people that are that are not pleased with the local government than than they let on. But it also said something about manufactured homes and modular homes. There's expediting for those. Like you're going to replace the homes that were there with mobile homes.

That's embarrassing. That's ridiculous. Again, these are 20 30 million auto homes.

Who's who's running the place? And when you say, well, these guys, who is allowing it?

Yeah. Makes no sense, Tom. I think what happens here is California will do everything they can to not let this be successful because the price of this being successful is massive. You know, five points, what was the uh Rob, what was the actual margin of victory for California as a whole in the presidential election. And if this moves five or seven points, led by the central valley, led by northern San Diego, led by Orange County, which by the way, the people of color in the areas that I've mentioned are the ones that are flipping. There's not suddenly more white farmers in central California.

It's his second and third generation Hispanics that are like, "Hey, wait a minute. What's going on here?" You know, it was 50 5838. That goes 5343. Suddenly that becomes 10 points. It goes from a 22 point member because the percentage points come off each end becomes a 10point swing California that once upon a time was completely in play and you're looking at maybe congressional traction in San Diego and

congressional traction. Well, maybe traction 48 to4 Tom after Jerry Mandering is done.

Exactly. How do you compete with 48 to4? But you're not going to win it. But this is going to move this. It's like one succeeds.

They can't let him succeed because it causes independence to say, "No, wait a minute.

This guy got it done and I really didn't like him, but this guy didn't and I was only

Why again did I vote for Gavin Newsome? There are independents that reflect. Other people will just never

This is embarrassing. By the way, this is and by the way, can you pull the Chamat tweeted back up, Rob, please? Uh, this was Chamat's tweet. Newsman in California keep endlessly raising taxes and then waste it uh to their cronies. At no point did they think to actually spend even a few cents of more than 350 billion a year on filling the water tanks.

And then then comes the Palisades fire. And guess what? The insurance companies are now suing the government of California because they think California should pay, not them. If you were them, wouldn't you do the same? This is the price of incompetence and lararseny by our government representatives in California. When will enough be enough? It's logic. So if somebody reads this, what's the first thing you say? I don't see emotion. I see logic. Go ahead and argue it.

Rob, show the picture of the lawsuit. Look at the list on the left. Those are the insurance companies. Pat,

can you zoom in a little bit to see who they are? Orion company. Was it California General Underwriting Insurance Company? Mercury. Okay, that's a big one right there. Fortega K Summit Insurance Company. Where's Chuck? Chub

line 19. Banker standards insurance company. Chub. Okay. Chub is I got a personal relationship with those guys.

Lloyds. Lloyds of London. Where do you see Lloyds of London? Lower. Yeah. Lloyd's insurance company. Where is that coming from?

All the way on the other side. That's coming from all of the big money houses are by Chub and Lloyds.

Yeah. So, these are not small companies that are suing them. The entire state. So, you're losing insurance companies, you're losing people, you're losing creatives, you're losing innovators, you're losing investors, you're losing two guys that just built a $4 trillion company out of California that moved to the great state of Florida. You're losing all these guys. What's the argument? What's the argument with what's happening? I mean the the idea is to bring families that just want to build businesses, buy properties, take care of their kids, and you're not creating a climate like that because now if I'm buying a house, I have to be worried if I can even get homeowners insurance. Watch this uh story that came out on insurance. So, a story came out talking about uh uh um where's the one with the California insurance? Okay, I'll skip that one. I'll go I'll come back to it. why your utility bills are

out of control. It's not just the Arctic blast. One in five Americans can't afford their heating bills this winter as people are blindsided by utility costs. When I find that California story, I'll go back to it. So, let me read this to you. I'll read both of them because they kind of go hand in hand. And then Brandon and Tom, I'm coming to you with this.

Energy costs are surging nationwide and out uh uh stripping overall inflation. Last year, consumer prices rose 2.7%. Electricity costs went 6.7%. The primary heating source in the Northeast was up 7.4% and gas spiked 10.8%. Why? Aging infrastructure. Many of the components that go into delivering power were built more than 50 years ago and are nearing the end of their natural life. The cost of replacing and updating technology like wires, poles, transformers, and towers uh ultimately end up being passed on to consumers.

Battle Group, a consultancy that worked with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year to identify factors uh influencing retail electricity prices, estimates that spending on aging power transmission infrastructure has topped 10 billion. And it goes into explaining a couple different things. One of them is a climate change. They talk about the other one is natural gas price swings and then data center demand. And the last one talking about one in five Americans can afford their uh heating bills because of what's going on. Over 200 million people in America were hit uh by u uh the storm that came in snow and the rain and arctic. The winter gas electric bills in these region could climb by 10% or more over last year. According to National Energy, winter bills for electricity, heated homes will exceed $1,000 across the country. So, I can go on read these other numbers that they have here.

Brandon, why do you think this is happening? Yeah, so things are a little bit different in the Northeast. And I was talking to my parents about this because, you know, they live in uh the Northeast and it's um 80% of all the homes are heated by oil as it mentioned there are in the Northeast. So, very different than the rest of the country. And what's happening right now is that um since it's it's like it's been 10 to 0 degrees there for the past month or so. So, um for example, mo most houses will have a 300galon heating tank and oil is about $3.65 a barrel or excuse me um a gallon. And for example, uh you got to fill the thing up like once every two weeks or every 3 weeks. So it's like $2,000 a month right now for my parents home to fill the heating tank. And like you really don't have a choice.

$2,000 a month. Yeah. What was it before? Uh and it's like half of that when it's um it's less cold. You know, it's normally like around 30 degrees there or so, but it's been there's been a cold streak. So, um part of it like uh aging infrastructure. Yeah, sure. Part of it's um just a bad stretch of cold weather. But it's fascinating to me how we spent a couple hundred billion dollars a year over the past couple years from this um inflation reduction act like where the states are cramming solar installations and wind turbines down the people's throats, you know, giving you every incentive in the world to fortify that. But, you know, like I said, a third of the entire region in the Northeast is um their heat comes from uh the oil tanks. So, you know, that all that stuff's old. So, why is the government like pushing these things down our throats that aren't efficient ways to um to generate energy? They're

like they're letting these aging things, these aging tanks be the main source that people have and and a lot of people can't afford to uh fill their tank up twice a month. So, um it's it's funny where like the priorities go. It's funny that um like we uh spend all this good money after bad investments, but we're letting you know the vast majority of people literally can't heat their house right now. Like they're relying on like fireplaces or wood pellet stoves. Tom,

well, I find it very interesting that how Yahoo Finance writes a story. Energy cost is something we need to talk about. Energy cost is something that needs to come down for Americans. The Yahoo Finance story was quoting four different places last year, last year, last year, last year. So, it was talking about the last Biden winter. Isn't this interesting? And they're trying to lay this at the feet of Trump and data centers. Although the article goes on to say that there are more things there's aging infrastructure and stuff. Well, this is true and this is why one of the first things that the president said and we were at the inauguration and he got huge applause. What did he says? And as for energy, drill, baby drill. And so he's trying to look what he's done with Venezuela. Look what he's done with permitting permits. There we go. For additional drilling in the Gulf of America and in the Perian Basin and and

places everywhere except California that has been forcing oil producing companies out of the state through regulation. This is where the president can have traction on getting heating oil costs down this winter. And then he's already said to Microsoft and he negotiated with them and said, "Hey, look, if you're building a data center, you cannot dump that increase in uh cost onto the consumer." So, he's already aware of it and already drawing a line on it. So, we need help for the people that live in the Northeast. We need the power companies and we need the supply of oil to come up and the barrel cost to come down a little bit. of those people with stock and Chevron and Exxon on the exploration side will disagree with that, but that's what we need because that will help. But this article has a lot of stats from last year and I and there is a reduction in heating oil cost this year. Is it huge? I want to see a

direct comparison. And by the way, while that's happening, you see reports that some places gas prices are hitting a buck.99 in the states. Some places, definitely not in California, but some places, Californians may need to drive 800 miles to get it for buck 999 and then come back to California to save some money on that gas because of where the prices are at.

But it's a nice drive. Yeah, Brad, I want to get to this next story. I want to come to you with this because, you know, you hear stories right now with UPS uh cutting 30,000 jobs in sweeping cost savings push. Okay, so this is UPS Bloomberg story came out yesterday. Hey Rob, I don't know if you got a clip on this. Go for it.

PS announced it's slashing an additional 30,000 jobs on top of the 48,000 jobs it cut last year. The new cuts are all operational positions, including drivers. According to the company, part of a massive restructuring, winding down a partnership with Amazon and turning toward automation. You hear that word? In the same announcement about the job losses, the company reported that fourth quarter profits had jumped to nearly $1.8 8 billion beating Wall Street expectations.

How many of these jobs that were fired were union, Rob? Do we know? Is it 100% of them?

Let me take a look. So, and and what is the process when you fire union employees? What happens there? Is there a different uh severance you have to follow? Is there a different guideline you have to follow? I'm curious while you're looking that up. Uh uh Brad, for yourself, some of the people right now are worried, you know, am I going to get replaced by AI? Are these companies going to AI? Should I be worried about what's going to happen to my job? You know, and these are average people that are making maybe 80 to $130,000, $140,000. UPS has got jobs right now, paying 150, 160 a year, I think, after the recent raise they asked for with Union. What would you share with them? Some of these people that are worried about what AI is going to do?

Well, I would say I wouldn't worry about getting replaced by AI. I would be worried about getting replaced by someone that's leveraging AI. You know, I I think these 30,000 jobs that are being cut is really just an investment in UPS future. You know, AI is definitely going to make an impact. And if someone is not aware of that, they need to get aware real quick because it's crazy. So, so I think again UPS is looking at the numbers and realizing it's all about profit at the end of the day. I don't think I don't think that's a sign of of decline. And I think that's a sign of, you know, the the the the facts and the bottom line is starting to, you know, shape up to where AI is just going to take out a lot of these jobs.

What should they do? These are regular guys that got jobs. They're not business owners. They're not sales.

AI. Well, they need to become sales. One thing I learned, if you want to be financially successful, you need to get in the position to receive commission one way or the other, whether whether it's a salesperson or or or an entrepreneur. But to sit back and and think that you're you're just going to, you know, rely on how it's been. Things are changing and I think people need to take it seriously. Leverage AI. Learn to train it. Learn to leverage it. You know, where's that 30,000 cut going? You know, it's it's it's being invested in the future. So, become the future. Is there a unique app you use? Because the average person, they think AI, Open AI, a couple of these things that they think about. What is the most your favorite AI app you're currently using?

Well, we use a couple of different language models. Uh just depends on what we're doing. I think they all have their own talent. You know, I think the best is to is to pick a language model and then create your own off of it.

Off a language model. Yeah. I mean, you know, just just real quick on my phone. I'm I'm with Chat GPT to do some of the the copywriting things that we've embedded into Lightseed. We use Claude more. Um but again, I mean, I think it's all embionic at this point. It's making some serious serious changes. And I think anyone that used to get paid for this is is about to uh wake up to a ugly future because again, I can drop a book. I can drop your book into my training system and it will create a Harvard level instructionally designed course based on your book

and I don't even have to pay you. Isn't that amazing? Because I bought your book. That's the knowledge that I

That is unbelievable. Change it. Yeah. Tom, where you at with this 30,000? Well, what's interesting is UPS is saying that it's cutting the jobs and the uh CFO was on a conference call and identified that some of the that a good number of the jobs are coming to attrition. In other words, when people resign or retire, they're not replacing those particular jobs as they consolidate uh responsibilities. Number one. Number two, they had voluntary separation packages in areas where they had overhired during COVID. Remember during COVID, nobody drove to Costco to pick up stuff. Nobody went to Target.

Those were all being delivered by UPS. Remember that? Big boxes of stuff. And so UPS radically expanded. And if you were working for UPS and you were delivering, you were getting overtime hours. You were getting extra shifts on weekends if you wanted them. And they were hiring more people in sorting facilities and in the small vehicle deliveries because not everything is a giant uh brown truck for UPS. Well, all of that happened then, Pat, and then it's all come back down to earth as over the last three years, people are back to driving their SUV to Costco and picking the stuff up themselves. So, they said this is where that their reduction is going. But they also came back and announced that they were more profitable. So, for people that have a 401k, a UPS, there's UPS stock in the 401k. Not only is that smart for the business, they're helping the people that are staying there. your point,

investing in the people is dead on because they're helping people. People go, "Wait a minute, our hey, our stock is up, so it's in our it's in our 401k, right?" Yeah. Well, that's good for us for all the people that are there. So, this is just the way that the that the market breathes, inhales, and exhales. And this is an adjustment by UPS. It's a sign of a well-run company. The headlines from the Liberals like to be, "Oh, look at their cutting jobs." I look at it and I say, "Look what they've done for the half a million people that are still there. They're running a good company that's providing those people great jobs."

Brandon, because you have a very different angle on why this is happening. Yeah. I mean, I I think you know where I'm going to go. I'm going to go to the unions. I mean, I think that whether it's unions or whether it's minimum wage requirements, I think that's the the main cause of less jobs being available to people. Like, is it is it really $170,000 job the value that they're providing? Probably not. But the unions had to force their way and they demanded that and there I even saw crazier numbers than that. So I think it's it's partially that it's partially AI. But looking at this in a way of panic I I think it's a glass half empty mindset. I think there's so many opportunities with AI and especially with just like the data centers being built alone. Like a a lot of people who have gotten wealthy I've noticed like they they just go in the direction the government's going in terms of like where the money's flowing.

Like a lot of people um made money in real estate when the government was incentivizing people to build houses during the World War II time period. A lot of people made money when defense contractors were um you know going crazy during World War II. But right now data centers are the money's being poured into that the way it was during like the World War II or like the the dotcom bubble. So like think of all the inputs like the small little things that you could attach yourself to that go into building a data center. There's like probably a couple thousand different inputs just like the simplest things that go into a data center like the the wiring, you know, the HVAC, the um raised up floors, the every little piece of the infrastructure. You could attach yourself to that. And I I was looking last night, it said that vendors that um in involve themselves in that even if it's something like putting out SOPs for

data centers, they could have a 10 to 14 times multiple just for having that system in place where they could set up a certain aspect of a data center. So that's where I think that's where people's mind should be like where the money's flowing rather than the scarcity mindset of oh my god all the jobs are going to be gone like the cycle's happened over and over again where half the jobs get wiped out by new technology and then a bunch of new jobs that we never thought of appear.

Yeah. I mean if you force a company to pay $170,000 for drivers. Okay. And you have to do it. And I'm just looking it up right now on how it is to fire union and non-union. You know what it says? It's companies like UPS when it comes down to firing people, they typically go to non-union because it's easier to cut with non-union than union.

Union makes it difficult to cut them because there's all this red tape. You have to go through this process, that process. Non-union, you can just be like, "Nope, we're moving out. Union, you can't." That's obviously not a good thing when you have the control,

right? But the more and more and more companies push to force certain things happen under union, more of these companies are going to sit there and say, "All right, let's double down on AI even more.

Let's double down on AI even more." And then person that used to have a regular job. They're sitting there saying, "Wait a minute. I don't want to leave this company. You don't have a choice. We got AI to do your job now."

And you know, you were so difficult with us for wanting to be part of union. We appreciate the fact that you challenged us. We took your challenge and we now got AI that does your job even better than you. Thank you for that challenge. We're so grateful for you, Brad, that you got us to take AI seriously. Without you, life wouldn't be the same. You're amazing. We love you, Bradley. That was a quick shout out to Brad. So,

all right. So, let's get to the next story here on how this works because I don't think we're going to see uh uh this is going to be end of these stories we're hearing about uh union. Let's talk about coy to see if you guys think this is a good idea or not. Co- buying is rewriting home ownership and romance is no longer required. What is this co- buying stuff?

Is it like cohabitating? Is that what that is? Or what is this co- buying stuff?

Co- buying homes platonically that's a trend emerging among homeowners today. Kate Wood, a lending expert, told Fox Digital that co- buying is attractive because housing is incredibly expensive in US. Wood said people are co- buying homes with friends and family members. What we're seeing rising now is co- buying between friends or people who are family members, but basically buying a home with someone that you're in a non-romantic relationship with. According to the National Association of Realtors 2025 profile, first-time home buyers consisted of 25% single women, 10% single men. Interesting.

Yeah. Right. While the share of married couples remain flat at 50% from data collected from July 2024 to June of 2025 in comparison among all home buyers 61% are married couples 21% are single women 9% are single men also shared that the median age for buying a home for the first time rose from 38 in 2024 to 40. Wow. Additionally, purchases made by firsttime homeowners made up 21% of all buyers in 2025. Christina Modares, a co-bine strategist, shared her experience in co-bine with friends and family and one romantic partner. I tried to buy a house when I was 23. I don't know why I thought I could do it on my own. She told Fox, "I was just like, yeah, uh like I'm living with my five roommates. Like, I can do this." I love the fact that they're adding the like in it. I can do this. And then looking into it, I couldn't get a proof or mortgage. So I asked a friend and he was like, "Yeah, I'll buy a house with

you." So that's how I kind of got into it. Brad, good idea or bad idea to go go by? I think it's irrelevant as far as you know how you do it. As long as that you do it, you know, if I can't afford it on my own, well then partner up. Le le leverage another relationship regardless of it's romantic or not. Just get it done.

You're for it. Absolutely. like get it done. I think the result far outweighs the the the way in which you do it.

How how old were you first time you bought a house? Uh 24. 24 years old. So that girl really took care of you.

Yeah. No, I mean she gave me a little bit of a of a launchpad. Oh, very cool. And at 24 you bought a you bought a house. What was it?

Just a little, you know, almost track home. Las Vegas, Nevada. What'd you pay for it?

Um about 189,000. Really? And then uh very short shortly thereafter uh ended up selling it. Uh or basically my wife did. My ex-wife,

she took it. She took it. Yeah. That's qualified as a sale. Yes. But uh but again, when it comes to purchasing a home, I think it's the American dream. I think everyone should do it. I I don't I don't see real estate being a bad investment. And if you need to go in with a buddy or or a friend or, you know, even four, just get it done. I think I think it's a good thing.

Tom, tell me you have a different position because I want to see a debate on this. Do you have a do you have a do either one of you guys have a different Okay, Brandon does. Tom, your thoughts?

Um, well, I agree with the concept of buying and creating stability because that creates commitment. If two people buy, then it creates commitment. If one of them is an idiot, that's going to create incredible stress. And I think that the the the downside of this is they will end up selling it probably at the wrong time because someone's going to get married, someone's going to get a job somewhere else, someone needs to get out of it and then both of them are going to end up having to sell it. So I see the benefit in the beginning because they're not renting now. you're both, you know, paying into this and it brings commitment and stability hopefully to those individuals that do it because they're they're tied to the the insurance, the once a year the homeowners um uh property taxes and things like that, but I see a downside because they're not going to be synchronized when somebody gets married, somebody

doesn't get married, somebody gets a job that So, would you do it? Would you do it

in your 20s? Would you co by? Probably not. Would you recommend your girls to do it?

No. Okay. So, you say so look how firm you want to know as opposed to just not owning.

Um I you'd rather they run away their money? That's a great point. I wouldn't want my girls to be in a perpetual situation that they are not optimized financially, but I can't just do it for them. I can't write checks for them. And so, would I encourage my daughters to do it together if they were in the same city and her career is going the same way? Uh, I wouldn't stop them from doing it, but I would really lay it out. Okay, when do you guys have to liquidate? When do you guys do you think this is going to break out? I say you really got to think about who you're in with and what their lifetiming is and your lifetiming. But I I think this is that part is

where you at, Brent? Well, I just think there's an advantage in that situation because at some point, you know, you might be the one that benefits because someone's getting married and getting out and when and when you have the leverage cuz, you know, that's your that's your responsibility. Well,

I could buy the other house may maybe a little cheaper. I got the opportunity. Now, if I uh also, you know, I could end up in that situation where I'm getting married now. I got to give you the leverage. But I think that's a a future positive for someone.

Okay, Brandon. Yeah, sure. Sure. You could say uh with the circumstances we're in, it's strategic. If you match up with a family member and and buy it and rent it out to somebody, yeah, sure. We got live it with in in within the conditions that we have. But this is the absolute downfall of society. I mean, this is the first time in probably hundred years that we have a worse standard of living than our generation before us. Like we didn't hear our parents or grandparents talking about having to cohabitate and co- buy a house together. Like when I'm looking on Zillow, I'll see a house that's like I'll be like, "Oh, wow. It's a nice house for 400,000. Oh, never mind. It's a little slice of that house. You get this bedroom for 400,000. Then there's two other people in the bedroom in the middle and the bedroom on the far side of it for Yeah. 100%. They're doing that, too. And and there there's a thing

too where they sell off houses for say $400 $400,000, but you get to live there from January through April. Then another person owns it from, you know, June.

Stop. That's called time share. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's a time share. But there is a principle that they're applying to houses like that right now. So they're applying that to like standard real estate, not just vacation places. Florida snowbirds, too.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, point being, downfall of society. I know Trump's trying to do a lot of things to

So, for a guy that's 30 years old, you're not for it. I No, I'm I understand it.

Would you co with Hberto? Ombberto says, "Let's go." Not with Humba. No. Okay. I would do with a a family member or something.

Uh so, so here's what I think when I read this article. I think first of all, this article is written by a realtor who's not selling enough properties

and is just trying to get people to buy. Like, listen, man. If you can't afford it, go get a friend. Like, remember back in the days when you wanted to buy a car, what would the car salesman say? Dude, just go get your somebody to cosign, you know? Go get your dad to cosign. My dad will kill me if I ask him. Doesn't your uncle love you?

Yeah. Go, go, go, go, man. Go get your mom, you know, just tell her, "Mom, I need it." Remember that scene from u a couple's retreat where he calls Vince? He's like, "Vince, I I you I got I got Now, his name is something else. I got to buy this bike. I got to buy this bike, man. Jennifer left me. I'm really trying to impress this guy. I need you to cosign. And finally, Vince Fong kind of breaks and cosigns for the motorcycle for his friend. I don't know if you guys know the scene or not, but to me, I don't know. If I would have bought a property with some of the friends I had and all of a sudden they're like, I went in a lease with a guy, office lease,

his name was Michael. I'll keep it there. And three months into it, he says he's sick. So, I signed a three-year lease at this place on Devonshshire, 15,600 Devonshshire, right off the four or five freeway. Three months that he goes to Costa Rica for 9 months. I'm stuck with the assistant and one of his guys whose mom's the assistant every month I'm thinking she's collecting rent from everybody. She's not collecting rent from her own son. And I'm like, "How are you doing this to me?" And then they owed me $15,000, whatever. I'm like, "This is not The next office lease is I'm not You guys are not coming. You guys got to go get your own place." that to go to the old Agora Hills office for a few months before they found office, I said, "Nope, I'm going to find a way to pay this myself and it created so many headaches and there was we open up a checking account together and because something happened with credit even

though we had a penny left in the account, I was on that credit. I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. We have to move on." So, you have to pick people properly that you go into uh uh into business with and that part if you're in a desperate, if I'm a salesperson, I'm a realtor, you know what I'm saying? What a wonderful Everybody should do this. Everybody should do this.

But if my kid comes and says, "Dad, I want to buy a property with another guy." Like, "Buddy, I don't know what the other guy's doing. How stable is his income? How

pick and choose before you go through it. You want to I'll give you the final thoughts on this."

Well, I would agree. The part the partner in which you pick is obviously important, but you know, you buy a house, can't afford it. What do you do? You rent out a room. What's the difference? You know, you have single liability or or joint liability. But picking the right partner is always the key.

By the way, you know what I'm more for? I'm more for buying a house yourself and having three, four other people rent with you. That I'm more for that than I'm about buying with someone else because I can replace the renter

fairly quick cuz you college campus, you know, stuff like college school, you got kids are coming out, hey, $600, $800, $1,200, and then you're covering it. I think that part could make sense when you build equity, maybe not the other way around. Brad, question for you with some of the guys that are coming out of college. You know, a lot of young men look at your content as you're building. You know, what what is your most basic tip for men today, specifically men today, to develop confidence so they win in their careers and they win with women? What would some tip what would some What would be some tips you would share with them? young men.

H well, you know, there's always the cliche, do what you say you're going to do, but ultimately I think confidence comes from the memory of winning. You know what I mean? If you win a lot at anything, you become more confident in that thing. So if you want to become more confident at all around, you need to win more. And to win more, I think is easy because winning is a choice really, isn't it? So you just set your bar lower as far as a win goes. So like when I wake up in the morning, I brush my teeth. I'm celebrating like, man, that's a win. And for a lot of people out there, they should adopt that cuz I have people that, you know, come to me, ask me questions, and when they're speaking to me, they apparently don't understand brushing their teeth. So little things that win all throughout the day. Just start racking up the wins. You know what I mean? Step one, forgive yourself. A lot of people have past guilt and shame

and they just they just self-t talk themselves into uh insecurity, you know. So, so forgive yourself and then ultimately pick pick the right uh group. You know, if you're hanging around losers, you're probably going to be one, but if if there's one thing it would be stack up the wins, just start winning on a regular basis. Um and I think and I think you eventually start walking a little bit.

Anything with girls? Anything with girls? girls. I think at the end of the day, confidence goes a long way with girls. Um, you know, be figure out how to be a real man and not a beta. Don't try to split the bill. Don't don't lean on current belief systems. I would go traditional cuz most women most women, they want a man that that leads like a, you know, what would be considered a man's man, a real man, not someone who who believes it's okay to split the bill. like you don't split the bill, gentlemen. You you you you lead. You don't serve them. You lead, I think. Anyway, and I I've always done well, so it seems to work for me.

It you've always done well. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, Tom, how about yourself? Because, you know, uh uh for you, your your father's a rocket scientist. You're brilliant. You're smart. You're always reading knowledge. You know, your wiring is different. But I but guys, you have I've been with Tom. Tom is very comfortable with women. He's happily married, don't get me wrong, but you're not one that's

Don't Yeah, you're not one that's shy. You'll go up to anybody and everybody and talk to them. What did you do? Your profile is a different profile than Brad, right? He wanted to go into Hollywood. You went to IBM, right? What would you say worked for you as a man to win in business and with women? Well, I was very very fortunate um because I learned exactly the lesson uh that Brad's talking about. I had an internship when I was a senior in college getting a marketing degree. CalState Northridge happened to be quantitative marketing. They were they focused not on the fuzzy part of marketing but on the quantitative marketing and they actually had B2B sales orientation to one to one marketing for business course and I got an internship with IBM in sales and when I graduated they based on that internship and being a good guy and scared to death and just trying to impress people because damn it I need a

job tomorrow. When I graduate I got a job in sales with IBM went to IBM sales school. I was scared to death. I was literally insecure and scared to death in that class. There were people there with the gold cuff links and everything that were coming from other companies to IBM. But whether you came out of college or you were coming to IBM with less than five years of sales experience, you're in the same class because they were going to teach you their way. I finished number one in the class by just paying attention and following instructions.

And by the end of the class, I was ranked number one. I surprised myself. But I sat and I said,"I can hang with these people. These are people four and five years working for Xerox that want to work for IBM. I got the same job they did. I just I just finished it." And that gave me great confidence, but also the realization getting commission for your hard work is a heck of a way not to have to ask for a raise because a raise can be driven by me and how hard I want to work this.

Very, you guys said the same thing within 30 minutes because you talk about commission and you're talking about commission. No, I agree with what he just said.

Were you known as a sales guy in high school, Tom? Because I know you ran a business as well. The the surface I built it. Uh, I was known as a talker. I was known at times maybe being too much of a wise ass. Um, no way.

Yeah. I was I was known as being funny, but I wasn't the class clown that got like tossed out of class and had to go to detention. Y,

but I was known as as that. I was the curious talking bit of a wise ass guy but I what was very interesting people would come to me and ask me about like getting jobs I remember

so what was what was your play what was your game with girls uh I think when you're in your 20s Tom what was your play

like when I was in college compliment encourage and tell them how good they can be I think no I don't see that I think you're really but I I never lied to them. I never went the player route where you lie to her to give her false confidence.

So you would say you're fat but your eyebrows are pretty. Is that kind like that's what you're saying? Like at least you were honest.

No, I didn't do that stuff. Oh, but you just say you don't lie though. I encourage them. I would encourage people. I

cross on the line now. Tom, you do that nowadays. You could you literally could get fired to the HR if you make a

comment like that. Well, you just don't approach the fat ones, right? Or if you want a shady picnic, invite Oprah. But you know, it's like,

well, she's on GLP1 right now. So, shout out to her GLP1's. And by the way, just so you know, Tom, it's not her fault she's fat.

Is she still? Did you hear what she said in the interview? I learned something very new that it's not my fault that I'm fat.

So, I would disagree. Of course, I would disagree. No, it's a remote control chicken nuggets jumping into your

Did you hear this or no? Go ahead, Rob. Can you please play this clip? 28 second clip.

Brad, have you seen this? Watch this. Okay, I'm going to see his reaction. All these years I thought I was overeing. I was standing there with all the food noise. What I ate, what I should eat, how many calories was that? How long is it going to take? I thought that that was because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, if that is what you have, that is what makes you overeat. You don't overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat. Obesity causes you to have all of that food noise. And what the GLP1s have done for me, and I know a number of other people, is to quiet that noise.

Yeah. I call I call it discipline. That quiets the noise as well. Yeah. That's ridiculous. You know, it shows that even billionaires aren't that bright in some cases. I I is it is it that they're not bright or they have so many people telling them how amazing they are that they believe there's no way it's because of me I got fat.

Well, Oprah's bright, but in that case, that is victim mentality. That is finally I can I can lay my my shame, my guilt of of not having discipline because at the end of the day, all the GLP ones do is signal to the brain that you're not hungry. Well, again, that just removes the the need for discipline because you're not hungry. Yeah.

If you're not hungry, well, and you don't eat, it's the same thing. But when someone didn't have the GLP1 released and they are hungry, you can still choose not to eat. Period. So, that I can't even believe she said it. I mean, I respect Oprah from for for a lot of reasons, but you can't call it genetic. Genetic is the permanence of the human body, and you can't do it that. Just Google this, America. Go 1945, show me pictures of crowds at baseball game. 1945 pictures of crowds at county fairs. 1945, show me pictures of people up walking up and down city streets. And tell me what you see in the crowds. Tell me with the how many, you know, obese people you see. They're not all at home.

And find county fair, school graduation, any pictures you want from 1945. You know what I'm talking about. America was different. Our standards were different. Food was different.

Food was different. Yeah, that's that's the part as well. The gene in American and humans hasn't changed since 1945.

Yeah, it's the food for sure. Yeah. Brandon, do you have anything to add to this with you're 30 years old, so how's uh your game?

Uh I mean things could always improve. I think pretty good though. Uh I definitely agree with the confidence things. cuz I I definitely um in terms of like success uh you know between like girls and success like been choppy upward trend I think I don't know where these guys are at but um you know striving to be but um I definitely think confidence and being certain about what you want to do and where you want to go in life don't let anybody throw you off of that. I think that um that's that has a magnetic pull to it. If you are like you know it's like outweighing the devil the book outweighing the devil it says if you have definitess of purpose then you're going to you know make end up in good places in life. I think if you have definitessness of purpose and pursue that like crazy and take bold action then you're going to end up in a good place.

Yeah I like that. And listen every one of you is different when you when you uh uh uh explain that. But the the the confidence thing when you go any you can be someone who was known as a the jock that comes naturally. But you can be someone who's the nerd. You you have your own game on the way that you can make it work. But the market what the market's always going to want is more confident people whether it's career or relationships. And uh this is why I was about to announce to you guys uh we are about to launch Tom's dating advice course that's coming out on light speeded today. Hey, there's a reason why Brad is here today. 22 keys to dating in 2026.

The platform educational content to learn how you can have better genes where you can control yourself from the urge of eating too much so you can be in shape unlike other billionaires out there.

And the upsell will be how to close the hose workshop. Nice. Featuring Brandon Asetto. Yeah. All right, let's get to the next story. Google settles Google settles lawsuit for $68 million following allegations of secretly recording smart device users. Okay, this is a this is a very very interesting story here on what Google is doing. A lot of people are not happy about this. I don't know if you guys are following the story or not. Uh Google has agreed to pay $68 million in a class action lawsuit uh arguing that its voice activated assistant secretly recorded smart device users in violation of their privacy. A preliminary settlement was filed on Friday in San Jose, California federal court, but still requires approval by US District Judge Beth Lapson Freeman. The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and diss disseminating private conversations after Google Assistant tool was triggered so it could send them targeted

advertising. Google Assistant, which is only used only supposed to record when a user says phrases such as, "Hey Google, okay Google," or when somebody manually pushes a button on the device, inappropriately recorded personal conversations when these hot words were not used without the knowledge of the user of Google smartphones, home speakers laptops tablets uh and uh even wireless, uh, earphones according to the lawsuit. Tom, what can you tell us about the story? So, I'm going to read you the quote from Google. We do not acknowledge any fault, but we have done this settlement to avoid here comes the list. uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience, and distraction of lengthy litigation. Here's, let me translate it. Folks, we're guilty of sin, but fortunately, we can settle so we don't have to pay a billion dollars in court later. And yeah, okay, we were listening to you talking about dating

and sent you all the ads for nice restaurants, candy, and roses. Okay, we did it. This reminds me of the otter defense in Animal House, a very old movie. The issue isn't whether we took liberties with some of our female party guest. We did,

you know, and it goes downhill from there. This is them actually saying they knew that the devices were recording us and they were selling that information and at times pulling contacts out of our whole conversations and then selling that to advertisers in the form of hey here's a million men 40 to 60 years old all talking about SUVs and beer and but in the privacy things when we click the thing to accept using uh the Google devices. Guess what? You know, we were clicking a thing where we thought there was some privacy. $68 million.

They they settled it clearly to avoid 2 billion later. 68 million. That's like charging me 10 cents.

That's the whole point. Yeah, that's ridiculous. To boldly say, how do you process this?

It's just more corruption if you ask me. I mean, they know what they're doing. Where's the criminal prosecutions in some of these cases? that the these things should be criminal and that'll stop people. You know, there's uh I I think it was um I'm not sure the company now, but basically they know they're causing cancer by dumping the the the the waste in this local river and everyone's getting cancer and they I think

huh is it Nestle? No, it's like it's like Dowo Chemicals or or the people that make the non-stick pans. Gotcha.

So, there's movies about it. It's fact. It's history. You can look a movie like that about putting chromium into the water.

Yeah. So, so like again these companies that are making billions and billions of dollars get fined some stupid amount because they killed people intentionally. Where's the criminal prosecutions that would stop things? Same thing with the government. If you look at the government, you know, a lot of this money like opening a dayare and they're funneling money into daycarees. If you don't think that money is finding its way back to the same politicians and the same people in power, you I I think you're naive. So, where's the criminal prosecution? Google getting charged $68 million is like someone saying, "Hey, Brad, if you do that again, we're going to charge you 10 cents." That's just permission to keep doing it. And I bet you they're still doing it. And I'll bet you they're still doing it on a regular basis. Meaning, they all know we're together. Our phones are all together.

When your phones are off, they still know where you are. They can still listen. And I think the government uh gets those recordings.

Oh, you think they do? So you think so you don't think this is just for retargeting and advertising? You think this is going all the way up?

It's security. It's national security. It's everything. But they're listening to everything we do. They can see us from those televisions. These smartphone these smart watching a podcast. Hey Google,

they're listening. And again Google's just the the the distribution. It's the cable. You know who's listening? That's a different story. It's not just Google.

Brandon, do you agree? Uh yeah, I 100% agree with that last part. And I think the most surprising thing about this story is that people were surprised that this was happening. You know, like when

you know, they filed this in 19 2019. So that's seven years ago, right? And and and who got paid out?

Who got the 68 million? How come no one How come no one notified me that there was a class action suit and I could participate? What did everyone get 10 cents?

And where's my form? Yeah, they're supposed to email me a form so I could say, "Yes, I'm part of this." It's just like uh in CO when they issued the the employee credits, you know, they didn't tell any businesses. They were just real quiet about those.

Same thing here. And by the way, I don't think it's an accident that like think about how much the government likes to regulate things. There's been no regulation when it comes to data collection, data monitoring, and I think that's very intentional. I totally agree with you that I think that this this data is finding its way back to the government. And you know, we're we're looking at as if it's just raw data collection, but what's the power being able to go to anybody's device, like say they're an important person that's having important conversations that are, you know, a matter of national security or a matter of what's going to happen with a stock, you know, if you could just like jump onto Jeff Bezos's um Google device and see what's going to happen with if he's going to step down from Amazon or something. So, I like there's an endless limit limitations to what could be done with this, like the

power of it. So, I think that's the reason the government hasn't regulated it. And yeah, I think this is like a a small uh price to pay for what they get from it.

And and by the way, it's it's interesting because Apple did this as well and Apple had to pay fine two years ago for 90 million bucks. I don't know what the number is, Rob, if you want to pull it up. And then number two, you know, when you're asking about the class action lawsuit, allegedly there is tens of millions of people that participated in this, but in cases like this, only 1 to 10% of people get it. So, let's just say 50 million people are a part of this.

Go to 1%. Okay, 50 million. 1% becomes what? 500,000. Let's say it's a million. 68 million divided by a million people that are part of this class action lawsuit. A million people are going to get a $68 check. Thank you, Brad. You've been amazing. Your voice is amazing. We like listening to you. And for that, here's a $68 check. Okay. go fill up half the tank of uh you know of your Ferrari that you got and all the

like the government sending out $700 for disaster relief. Yeah. Replace your home here.

Yeah, that's right. Here in California, we'll take care of your 700 bucks. Uh okay, which story do we want to go to next? Let's go to gold. I don't know if you guys are following this gold story. It it is it is pretty wild. What's going on with gold? So, by the way, 5 years ago, Rob, can you can you ask what was a a price of a kilo of gold in 2020? Price of kilo of gold in January of 2020. Okay. I used to buy these kilos of gold. And I look at the price, Tom.

Tom, look at the price. We used to buy these kilos of gold in 2020, January, six years ago. And we would run contests and the winners would get a kilo of gold, which is what? $50,000. You remember this?

2.2 pounds. It was It was a phenomenal exercise. Guys would love it, but they would say it's just gold. Who cares about gold? Okay.

Do you know at the time when we would buy this, the price of gold was 1582? This is just 16 six years ago. Not 16 years ago. 6 years ago. Do you know how much gold hit this morning? Rob, can you pull up how much the price of gold is this morning? Price of gold this morning is $5,300, which means that $50,000 bar of gold that we would buy in January of 2020, Rob, what is it worth today? Can you ask the question? What is the what is the price of kilo of gold today? Kilo of gold today. Look at the price from 50K to $170,000

to all the people we gave this gold to. Like I said earlier, I hope you kept it. Okay, I hope you kept it. I hope you set it aside some. But let me read the story to you anyways. Dollar sinks to a four-month low and gold soarses past 5,000 as yen leaps. Rob, I think you got a clip on this one here. Go for it.

Current value of the dollar. Do you think it's declined too much? No, I think it's great. I mean, the value of the dollar, look at the business we're doing. No, dollar's dollar's doing great.

You know, it's very interesting if you look at China and Japan. I used to fight like hell with them because they always wanted to devalue their yen. You know that the yen and the wan and they'd always want to devalue it. They devalue devalue devalue. And they said, "Not fair that you devalue because it's hard to compete when they devalue." But they always thought, "No, our dollar is very good."

Okay. So Tom, what what does this mean? What does this mean with gold? And Brandon, what does it mean? I'll come to you first.

Silver is even moving faster than gold. But what does all this stuff mean to the average person?

Uh, so first of all, really interesting thing what Trump said there. This is like high level macro stuff. The concept of devaluing your currency makes it basically more attractive for other countries to buy things from you because it's uh it's cheaper. So you know, he's trying to make our our goods and services more attractive to other countries. So like he said, he would get upset when China would do what we're doing right now. So, you know that like the fact that we're lowering our interest rates as other countries are increasing their interest rates. That's why the dollar is getting lower. And when the dollar goes lower, pretty much all asset prices go up and definitely gold and silver in a much higher way.

But the interesting thing is that the that's fascinating to me is that the banks are allowing it to happen because it's been a thing for a long time that all evidence in my view points to the fact that the banks were suppressing the price of gold and silver because it's been flat for a long time. Yeah. And like the like if you look at a chart of the M2 money supply from 1971 when we go off the gold standard versus the price of gold, there's a big difference in the rate of which the M2 money supply goes up versus the price of gold. Like they should be proportionate to each other.

So I think if the the price of gold was proportionate to the amount of money that was created after the gold standard, you could be talking 10 20 30,000 um instead of 5,300. So, I just think it's interesting that the banks are allowing it to happen because they are fully in control of keeping the price down. You know, with their um their short contracts, they used to hammer it down, especially u I remember in 2020 when they tried to do the silver squeeze, they hammered the price down. But, uh the silver one is probably even more concerning to the government than the gold one because silver it's an industrial metal, not just an investment metal. Like silver is an input in everything like from, you know, missiles to satellites to um EVs, all electronics. So, think about what that does to input prices when you're building, when you're manufacturing things. So, that's serious stuff.

Tom, your thoughts. So, I I think whenever you see precious metal goes up, it means that there is more faith and more demand for the precious metal as an investment than the US dollar. But with the US dollar being cheap, it means it's very expensive for uh I'll tell you the best way to look at it. Um if you've ever gone to a foreign country and and Not just buying food or paying for your hotel, buy something. You know, you go to Italy and you buy a fashionable shirt and you you go, "Wow, in euros, this this seems more than what I'd pay for a fashionable shirt in the US." Y

how much is this in dollars? Really? $200? In the US, I could get this shirt for like 150 bucks, 140 bucks, something like this. There you go. That's where you can see the value of your currency. So right now it's expensive for US citizens to go abroad and pay for food, lodging, and things that you might want to buy.

It is not expensive for people to come here. So on people come here on the euro. What's the euro to the dollar right now? Rob, you can do that real quick. Um I think it's 80 cents or something. 119. And flip it the other way. uh yeah 80 cents 84 cents. So it's less expensive then to come. That's what happens.

That's what goes on. But what this also means it's less expensive for other countries to buy from us and for us to export to them. So that is actually a a benefit. So you have these benefits going back and forth. Right now, the people that bought and invested in gold, they're getting a tremendous return and a tremendous paper value until they sell it. And if they sell it right now, they're realizing that value. And right now, it's expensive for people with the dollar to go elsewhere or to buy things abroad. And it's less expensive for people to buy things from us like all the oil that we're producing and the natural gas that we're producing.

Brad, I think when trust goes down, uh, the value of gold goes up. You know, trust right now there's wars and rumors of wars. You know, there's major things going on. People do not trust the the the government, let alone the dollar. And I think,

but how come that didn't happen during co Why did they printed 80% of the money and started giving it away to everybody?

So, shouldn't that then increase the value of gold? Well, if we were all intelligent. Yes.

Look what happened to crypto though. I think the money that should have went to gold went to crypto during co because crypto went astronomical during um during co and there was like a it felt like a concerted effort to like on CNBC and whatnot to talk people out of gold and silver and there was the banks short selling the hell out of it. Like there's a lot of times a paper trail of that. But that's why it's interesting to me that they're letting it happen now because I think they could control it and stop it from happening if they wanted to bad enough. But the central banks the first time they have um more gold than bonds on their books. So I think that now they're in a position because like remember in the big short when they said they wouldn't let the credit default swaps price properly until they were positioned. I think it's like that.

What a coincidence. Yeah. But when trust drops I think gold goes up just because of that. And I think we're at a alltime trust deficit. You know there's there's uh

unpack that for me. There's just a lot of stuff going on where people aren't trusting anymore. You know, you you see it all over. You know, no one trusts the media. You know, nobody trusts the news. Can you imagine? Nobody believes the news or at least a lot of people don't or starting not to. I think they call it wake waking up. They know we're being swindled. I mean, we the the go I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that the that the government treats us like a business and and when they should treat us like the customer, they're treating us like the product. So, like, you know, people are waking up to it and I think people invest in gold when the dollar's, you know untrustworthy.

Would you buy more gold today? I wouldn't because if this crap hits the fan, Patrick, gold's What? Do you want a borrow of gold for your water? No, I want water, guns, and ammo. I think that's what I would invest in if I thought things were really going to crash.

Would you buy more gold today? I'm not at 5,000. Would you buy more gold today?

Uh, very slowly maybe. I I mean, um, yeah, I think it's good to have like at least 7 to 10% of your whole portfolio in gold or silver.

What's more likely to happen in the next 10 years? Bitcoin goes to a million or gold goes to 50,000.

Gold 50,000 because I have no idea what's going to happen with Bitcoin. Like I think Bitcoin is on a track to go to 50 uh to go to a million quickly. But Bob,

can you run a poll on that? What's more likely to happen? Let's see what the audience says. Gold going to What's more likely to happen the next 10 years? gold going to 50k, Bitcoin going to 1 million. Continue.

I think a scandalous thing could happen with Bitcoin. I think less than a 50% chance, maybe even less than a 10% chance, but still don't know who made it. So, I think there's still like that possibility that it could all go up into flames because it's still a pretty new thing.

You think so? Yeah. I mean, less than more than 0% chance. Yes. So, so you're more gold is likely to go to 50k the next 10 years than Bitcoin to a million. Where are you at around? Uh I'm I'm on the Bitcoin side there. You have got um governments and banks suddenly saying things about Bitcoin that Charlie Mer 12 years ago said it was rat poison.

And remember that famous quote, famous speech. What do you think about it? I don't think it's just poison. I think it's rat poison. And you know, I have a lot of respect for Charlie, but that was the prevailing thinking of the day by central banks and banks. Now all of a sudden, oh, Vanguard allows you to buy, you know, Bitcoin ETFs and to put in a an investment account. Oh, it's okay now to have Bitcoin ETFs in 40 401ks, which are regulated. It's okay to have an IRS, which are less regulated, but it's a rules-based investment um account. And so now you can buy Bitcoin ETFs for that. I see Bitcoin getting adopted more and more by the mainstream and so at some point in time you know it it kind of crosses and it's living in the world of fixed set. So, it's a going to be a fixed set and fixed supply, right? We How many bitcoins have already been established the minute they print more bitcoin or they allow it?

Now you're fiat, right? Now you're like the dollar. What's the number? 21 million or whatever the number they got,

I believe. Isn't it right that there's only 21 million bitcoins that have to be slowly mined and pulled into into service?

Oh, they do that. I mean, the market the critics would lose their mind. Brad, where are you at? If you look at the poll right now, it's 50/50. They're saying it's more likely Ghost could wow.

Mhm. Gold goes to 50K, then Bitcoin goes to a million in the next 10 years. Well, I would say that you probably have an older demographic then.

Bitcoin is is going to a million is far more likely. Next 10 years. Yeah, for sure. I think in the next three to five.

Question I got is when has gold ever 10xed in a decade? the 70s or 80s, whenever that book was.

But that's not that's not 10xing though. That's called it was $35 because they set that price and then after Nixon 72, they opened it up. So, I don't know if that really counts.

It went to like 800 bucks. I totally get it. But it's a different It was worth 800 bucks. Yeah.

But the government had, you know, kept it under control because we everything was based off the gold standard. We got off the gold standard,

right? Bit Bitcoin cannot be recreated. It's it's limited. And because of that, you know, I think the the bet is on Bitcoin and and not to mention, I think when they replace our financial system, it's going to rely on crypto. Wouldn't you? I I I agree. So, I've heard you say a couple things. You said wars and rumors of wars and replacing the financial system. So, I think at our core, we probably believe how this game's going to play out and the ultimate crash and a year of jubilee and then you need a new system. I'm on that same page.

And I think the powers you Yeah. And I think the powers that be know it. The question is is how long will it take? And I think within 10 years it will be. And that would push Bitcoin to a to over a million or at least a million.

Well, we'll see. Listen, let's revisit in 10 years. And uh Brad, put in your calendar in 10 years, we're going to do this again and see. Uh

God willing, I'm around. Huh? God willing, I'm still here. God willing, we're all still here. God willing, we're still here. All of us. Let me continue with the next story that we have going on here. Um, anthropic CEO comes out and says this, okay, says humanity needs to wake up to dangers of AI. And I think what he's specifically talking about, Tom, is super AI, which I'm coming to you on this one. Uh, but Rob, I think you got a clip on this. Humanity needs to wake up to the potentially catastrophic risks posed by powerful AI systems in the years to come. Is this him, Rob?

Yes, sir. And by the way, just so the audience knows, Anthropic is, how do you explain Anthropic, Tom? It's a $350 billion company. They just 2xed in valuation in a few months. Everybody wanted to get in on anthropic. It's the next big thing that people are looking at. Here's what their CEO had to say. Go ahead.

You know, I think I think I think if we wait three years, like this technology is progressing exponentially, right? Three years ago in 2023, the models were maybe as smart as like a smart high school student. Now we have engineers at Enthropic where the model writes all the code for them it you know and and and the engineer maybe edits it but we're very close to you know mid to high professional level right and and so that was just in three years if we wait another year three years I think we'll get what I call in the essay our c a country of geniuses in a data center may maybe less than three years and so you know three three years is an eternity in this field and and so I I think we absolutely need to act before then. One place where I really have hope is I think as these problems start to manifest again they're not going to be partisan right like you know it may start with you know one party or one

side having an anti-regulatory ideology but I think as these problems become real there's going to be a demand among everyone

and in the note you outline the different risks whether it's bioteterror or whether it's authoritarian regimes with with with too many tools uh to to do subversive of behavior like what like how worried are you? I mean you're obviously worried enough to state it and you're worried enough to raise it but like in your mind how likely is that outcome particularly if we don't do anything for the next three years. Is it like a 1% or like no no if you don't do anything for three years like we could be screwed.

Yeah, it's it's always hard to tell. One of the things I say in the essay is is you know we we we just we just don't know right. we could look back and we could say, "Haha, AIdriven bioteterror." You know, that was, you know, that that sounded like it could happen at the time, but like, you know, it just it just it, you know, it it just it just it just didn't happen at all. And it's it's very unpredictable. You know, the way I would say it,

Tom, where you at with this? So, 2023, 2024 for AI, those were the years of the chip. Nvidia comes out of nowhere. Everybody asking each other, "Do you own Nvidia? Oh my gosh." And then the rest of us looking at it and saying why is Nvidia coming out of nowhere? So the number of chips is out there. Then last year the AI agent showed up as well as the collective realism that the data centers that are planned today are going to take 12% of the power in the US and says wait a minute wait a minute 12% of the power that means there must be a hell of a lot of processing and a hell of a lot of data centers. That's correct. That's absolutely correct. And now we're getting Pat to the age of the AI agents.

Well, the AI agent is basically AI that can do something for you. Automatically answering emails is a simple one that's available to everybody right now using Microsoft Pilot. Uh certain emails, certain rules, it'll automatically respond for you with a simple answer or find an open place on your calendar. That's an AI agent. What he's talking about is the advance in the computational power and the library, also known as LLM, large language model, that it has to use that you could have a bad actor learns how to build a nuclear bomb much quicker or learns how to deploy a biotech poison much quicker.

And that what's happening is that now the agents and the collective intelligence behind the agent is sort of now the third the fourth wave chip data center agents and now collective processing power and super AI powering used for bad. Okay, you can look back in history and saying oh my gosh the folks that invented the nuclear weapon we need to regulate and control this. We need to figure this out. We're about to go to what will be the next wave, which is levels of control through oversight. So, if you think that Google listening on your device or your Alexa device to sell you ads is spooky, the back end of AI is going to know who's looking for what.

And the government is going to by default have to be snooping on that to see who's using AI to find out what is the best stream in America to put a viral poison in to kill the most number of people based on snowpack runoff melting and the speed of the stream. People are going to be asking those questions. Where's the best place for a suicide bomber to kill the maximum number of people in New York City on Black Friday? Oh, well, it'll look at traffic. So, the government's going to have to see this. And that's what he's talking about. Now, we get to the super AI and the ability of bad people to do really bad things and to be enabled by it. Now, you've got the government's going to have to be there on the back, which I'm not endorsing, but I'm saying that is what he atropic, which is building these models and would knows what they're talking about in terms of the power of them. Sorry for the long

answer, but I wanted to take people through what they've been hearing in the last four years.

Yeah. Say six years ago, could you have imagined what chatbt does right now? Like like even the concept of it? No. Like like we all knew about AI, we knew about technology advancement, but just like the sheer abilities of uh what chatbt or Grock or Gemini could do. Never thought that could happen. So yeah, like like the craziest thing about it is like the the speed of technology, how it goes up at an exponential rate. So, don't know what the hell is going to be around the corner. Don't know if we're going to even even going to have control over which that's that's the weird part is that it gets to the point where the thing starts communicating with each other. Like if you've heard a bunch of stories where the Google or Amazon had to like shut it down because that they started talking to each other.

So, I don't know just what happens when AI starts talking to each other and um you know deems people inefficient or starts uh trying to have a a mind or a philosophy of its own. I don't know how far away we are from that, but uh that that's the creepy part to me. Right.

Well, all technology kind of starts out clumsy, right? So, I think it'll get better, but uh when the people that make it are warning you, I think you should be listening to what they're saying. I I just can't understand why uh what's the danger? So, I'm going to go read that because what would be the danger? Like, why do they think what are they going to AI going to become to where we just we're the problem? We're the virus. So, it eliminates us. Like, what Terminator?

What's the possibility of AI becoming so super intelligent? I just in my mind I'm thinking, well, that just makes life easier.

How's it going to what is it going to do? Why are why is it dangerous? Yeah. Let me tell you where I'm at with that. If, let's just say, go to the horror that they're selling. Jobs are all going to be replaced. People are not going to have jobs. They're not going to have income. They're not going to be able to pay bills. Who are their customers? Who buys from them? Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah.

Then who buys from them? By the way, what happens to mankind? What happens to any society when people don't make money, don't have anything to lose, don't have a job, don't have a family, who loses? Let me ask that question one more time. What happens to any society where people don't own homes, they don't have jobs, they're not having their dreams become a reality, they have nothing to lose. What does that society look like?

That's anarchy. If no one has anything to lose, you have the worst of human impulse and you have

who loses chaos. Who loses? Everyone. You know who loses? The people of power, right?

That's who loses. So So guess what? If they go in this direction where, you know, you lose your customers, you lose your employees, you lose your consumer, you lose your buyer, what the hell you're producing? Who cares what you're producing? You heard the story about Amazon that came out and they're shutting down their what was it 2123 cashless cashierless uh stores in California.

Oh yeah, the uh the what is the brand name they use for those stores? Is it Whole Foods or is it which one is it?

Amazon Fresh. Amazon Fresh, right? Is this the one that they're closing? Rob, you want to play this clip?

Yes. Go for it. Why the change in strategy? Yeah. Closing and shuttering what was already a diminishing footprint, right? There are only 14 go stores. We have one of them or had one of them here in SF and 58 Amazon fresh stores. And as you point out that real estate gets converted to Whole Foods. This is not Amazon saying that they are done with grocery. Far from it. It was interesting when those headlines hit. Clearly, there's an algo reaction, right? And Amazon paired some of its gain. It's now back up to a 6/10 of a percent gain. But Walmart took a leg lower because the commitment from Amazon is very much to grocery in the context of subsame day right they've been focused very much on the online offering and doing those hourly uh deliveries and slots but foot traffic's been falling away on these early locations I don't know if you guys have ever been into an facility

Robbie if you want to pause it. So, you know, the question the question then becomes you're saying, you know, the fears, what are they, what are they afraid of? I need to go read this article. Why would you be afraid of uh what's going to be taking place, Tom? Amazon's move that they're going to Okay. And they're bringing it back to Whole Foods. How much how much patterns are you noticing of companies realizing you know e even with let's just say AI gets so good that you can tell it to create videos and teach XYZ content on videos. You saw what YouTube said.

YouTube said we're not paying you monetization if it's not a human person. July 15th of last year, I think YouTube came out with a new rule that if it's not a human being creating the content, all the I don't know what word they use, the faceless content that you're creating, we're not paying you AdSense. We want people creating content.

More and more companies are going to go to, hey, we kind of need people. We kind of want people. We kind of need you guys to also have jobs. Can we pay you? I actually think this AI thing is going to go this way and then it's going to go that way. It's going to be like no our differentiator is when you come to our store we have people we have human beings you will not be talking to robots. I think people going to go that route. This is a different story about Amazon though Tom if you want to give us an update on this story.

Amazon uh as as the as the analyst said very very correctly. Amazon is not giving up on groceries. They have Whole Foods and they have that. And more importantly, if you go into Whole Foods, the locker space has doubled over the last 18 months. And that's the lockers, those Amazon lockers that are on one side of um where when we were all growing up, that's where the 50 lb bags of dog food would be stacked up along with charcoal and bags. Well, now you have these lockers where you go up there and you open it and that's where your Amazon delivery was was in one of those lockers. So Whole Foods is alive and well and being well used and exploited by Amazon. They tried to make these Amazon Fresh ghost stores so they could save on labor because grocery has a very very tight margin in the first place.

Hey, we'll make convenient grocery stores. You walk in with your phone, we'll see that it's your phone and you can Apple Pay walking out and it'll just beep. Well, then there were the people with a hoodie and a baseball cap and dark glasses that had no phone on them because they knew the game and walked up, took five things and walked out. Boy, this is easy. So, there was shrinkage. So, basically, Amazon couldn't make this this thing work. They couldn't make Amazon Fresh and the Ghost Store work. So, they're closing it and and and putting all their effort in grocery back into Whole Foods. That's what happened. And so it found out that, you know, human security guards or human people checking out were really helpful to to curb shoplifting

versus a guy walks in, I'll have two Red Bulls and that sandwich and walk out. We'll scan his phone. They deliberately didn't have phones in their pockets.

I think that's what I'm saying. I think the more AI accelerates, the more these big AI companies are going to sit there saying we need people. I think that's what's going to happen. By the way, you run a uh you were one of the first guys that built a online university. You have a thousand business owners that have their stuff with you at Lightseed and you got millions of customers, right? Millions of clients that use your technology. What have you seen over the years when you first started and then seeing other guys that are going ahead of AI, what have you done to compete with how fast AI is growing? Well, we leverage it, you know, we we we drop it into the to the technology. So, so the knowledge is more uh quickly created, delivered, tracked, and measured. So, again, I mean, I think before the knowledge was the key. Well, now for $20 I have a doctor in my pocket, a nutritionist, a lawyer. So, knowledge is

getting commoditized. the the uh you're going to have to understand at least we do that it's all training is all about good content, repetition, practice, and accountability. And before people were paying for content now content is very inexpensive. And that's a good thing for us. I think it's a good thing for human beings. Why? Well, because now you're just a choice away from becoming more relevant, more successful, and more, you know, at the end of the day, it's it's it's a good thing to me. I I am not afraid of AI. I can't understand the dangers in it so far. But if everyone's out of work, Patrick, don't you think they would just start giving out a basic income?

Oh, I think that's terrible. The plan is Well, yeah. I think that's terrible because what what what uh uh when a when a group of people majority don't have something they're in pursuit of and you give them income, that's a horrible society. That's a horrible society. Problems will happen. People with time on their hands will start doing horrible things. Uh it'll be catastro. That's not a society you want to live in. If people don't have something to do that they're in pursuit of, I do not want to live in that society. I don't want to live in that society. I want to be around other people where you're going after something, you're going after something, you're going after something. Great.

Collectively, we have to make sure this city is going to be safe. We have to make sure collectively, oh, you know, you know what? Send us more money, send us more food, send us free this. That is a scary, scary society. And by the way, it's been tested. It's not like UBI's never been tested. Alaska tested it uh uh for a minute. Many countries have tested UBI uh when uh Andrew Yang suggested this. I don't know which election it was when he brought this up. Was it

1516 or was it No, I don't think it was 2020 with Biden. I think it was was it 1516 or was it previous to that? Maybe it was 1516

something like that. It was 2020. Okay. Oh, sure. It was 2020. So, when he introduced this thousand a month thing was like, "Yeah, it's a good idea." And it was like a Milton Friedman negative income tax. What did Milton Freriedman call it? Rob, uh, can you type in Milton Freriedman negative income tax that he proposed um, years ago? Yeah. Negative income tax. In his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom, people with incomes below a specific level receive supplemental payments, negative taxes, from the government while those above it pay positive taxes. uh work incentive.

Unlike traditional welfare that often reduces benefits dollar for dollar, the negative income tax reduces benefits by only a fraction for every dollar earned. So encouraging recipients to find employment. I think we got to we got to keep the society involved. I think we do.

Too much time on your hands is not a good thing. People should start focusing on things that are done with labor, your hands,

because again, I don't see AI replacing your toilet or or rewing your building.

Yeah. So, I think blue collar is going to become white collar. White collar is going to start working for the blue collar. So, either own the business

or or get good with your hands. Yeah. Yeah. Tom likes foremen. So, it's a it's a it all depends on what uh direction you want to go with this. All right. Next door, Yale goes tuition free for families making below $200,000 a year income. Yale University is going tuition free for undergraduates families with incomes under 200,000. Following recent moves by peers, including Harvard University to broaden access, enhance financial aid will ensure that students from such families will receive need-based scholarship that meet or exceed the cost of tuition. Yale said in a statement Tuesday, "The changes will take effect into uh uh 2026 2027 academic year will also eliminate all expected costs for families with typical assets and incomes below $100,000."

Brandon, your thoughts? I mean, it's about time uh to be honest. Like Yale has every benefit in the world at its favor. I'm if I'm not mistaken, I don't believe they're required to pay taxes or certain portions of taxes. Like I'm from New Haven. It takes up the entire city. the entire city's um decrepit because of um Yale doesn't have to pay taxes to it. So, I mean the and the crazy thing is that the vast majority of their money doesn't even come from the tuition. So, you would think this would be something that would be floated a long time ago, but instead what you're racking people that their parents make $100,000 a year with $300,000 in debt. So, yeah. No, I think it's it's great. Uh they still have problems with the way that they take on people. you know, they try to match up the demos to be proportionate with the the demographics in society. So, you get people with of different races getting

in with lower or um higher GPA requirements. So, I don't think that's great. I think that could be like a a blindfold thing where you you're not really looking at the gender or the race of somebody. You're still letting them in on merit. So, a lot of things to complain about with the L, but no, I think this is good. I still think and I think there's more room for improvement, too.

Tom, so uh I have a little bit of a contrarian view on this. I'm a little skeptical because Harvard and Princeton did the same thing very very recently. I was seeing numbers over the last six months that Yale, Harvard, Princeton, MIT were taking in a larger percent of foreign uh students from wealthy families around the world who could pay full boat, meaning full price for everything.

Sure. Number one. Number two, Yale was also lost lawsuit at the federal level on manipulating admissions and being racially discrimin having racial discrimination built into their intentional model. Some people call it an algorithm. It was intentional. And it was Asian students and families that the it came from Asian-Americans that said, "Hey, you know, we are being depprioritized and you're doing this wrong." It went all the way to the Supreme Court. Yeah. lost and there's another suit that went up halfway and Yale won. But I think that there's a reaction happening in the Ivy League and I think this is potentially window dressing compared to who is actually paying because I don't think the Ivy Leagues anytime soon are going to stop the way they've been playing the game. There have been some suits, there have been some trip wires, but I I don't think they're stopping. And I think this is I think this is a bit of PR compared

to what we're seeing on the amount of people they're admitting and what they're paying.

Yeah. So, it's interesting if I if I want to be a devil's advocate and kind of ask the question about the 600,000 students that the president said is coming from China and I think it was doing an interview with Laura Ingram which is like we don't need 600,000. No, we do need it. We do need the 600,000. No, we don't. It's the the the 600,000 figure. Rob, can you pull up to see when they're looking at those numbers coming through? Because if you do the math, what do you want to do the average number on it, Tom? 600,000 times what?

Tuition per year. Oh, I I can tell you what it is right now. Uh, I'm all in. I'm all in at Rice at 90 a year.

Stop it, Tom. Tuition and onampus housing. It's 90k a year. So what average do we want to take if these 600,000 Chinese students are coming here over the next however many years? It starts a the announcement was August of 2025. I don't know when it's going to start.

Ivy League average is 67,000 which they publish but there's another 20 in there for the dorm.

The average are they all going to go to Ivy or they going to go to different universities? It's not all Ivy, right? So take the average of all of it.

75. You want to do 75? Damn. But like for it's probably still 60. I don't think you can go to the University of Michigan with a dorm plan in Michigan for

if you take 600,000 at 50k do you know how much it is per year to universities 30 billion in revenue

with a B if it's 75k it's 45 billion in revenue per year then do that times four that's $300 billion going into the college system so do you think devil's advocate did saying, "You sue these schools. You publicly put them in their place. Stop doing this BS, ESG, DEI crap that you're doing. Stop playing these games you got going on here. Get back to education. I don't want to do this woke stuff anymore. And guess what? Pay the fees. Pay the fines on the back end. I'm going to bring you $300 billion over the next 5 to 10 years."

Tom, do you know what I'm saying? Yep, I do. So, that could So, you're saying that could be the play? I mean, I just I'm sorry. I I'm diluted because 300 billion just doesn't feel like a lot anymore because that's like one Ukraine payment.

But not not not It's not a lot of money to you. It's not a lot of money to the government. It's a lot of money going to universities.

Is it though? You mean split up by all the universities? If like what percentage of it's going to go to the top universities?

Uh probably the at least 50% of the top I don't know if it's going to be 50% but let's say 20%.

Okay. What's 20% of $300 billion? 60 billion. Yeah. 60 billion. Still a lot of money. Yeah,

60 billion still a lot of money over the next few years. Enough to change your entire initiative though.

I I don't know. It's if it's entire initiative. You have to realize the the part when I watch where Trump is at with bringing talent in from other places like you know he put all these restrictions of where people can come from and but he didn't put it on people that are coming from India. Why not

want to be friends with India? Do you want to be friends with India? Do you want to make sure your big AI technology companies that rely on those engineers coming from IIT? You need that. It is a very technical sensitive complicated topic

that has people on the same side of the aisle fighting each other on this one topic.

Make sense? That's a good point. And I don't know what's going to happen with it. I don't know the ideas behind it. Do you have any thoughts on this? Well, I think the value of of of higher education is dropping and and I think that's that's what you see as a result. You know, they have to lower their price. People aren't valuing the education as much as they used to. Before it was you had to go here and if you're going to go there, you go to these Ivy League schools. Well, people realize you don't you do not need a degree anymore to be successful.

Period. And so, they have no choice but to lower their fees. Then they turn it into a PR stunt to act like they're finally trying to help people. They're not trying to help anybody or they change the curriculum, not the pricing. And not only that, I think the government should provide education for free if we really wanted to empower our country. You know, education should be free for qualified individuals, period. And I don't care where you go. Like, it should just be free. I want to produce badass individuals. and and you know we're we're quick to give out money and then people stand in line at Louis Vuitton you know during co like these these stores Louis Vuitton Gucci there was lines around the block for people wanting in there it was ridiculous so I think Yale and and Harvard and any other Ivy League school that that is you know making a claim that they're starting to try and help those less fortunate I

think that's nonsense. I think it's PR and I think it they realize their value is dropping.

Do you know the do you know the the the program Florida has? What what is it called town? Bright future.

Oh, bright future state of Florida. Yeah. Can you can you unpack that to Brad on how Florida works?

So in the state of Florida, if you've lived here for a certain number of years and your child has a 3.0, 3.2, 3.5 and you've been paying property taxes, income taxes, license plate taxes. Thank you very much for raising a great child, Brad. You can go to school for free. University of Florida, Florida State, FIU, UCF, any of the schools that state tax dollars go to support under the Bright Futures program because you've lived here in Florida and you've raised an exemplary student. Your education is free for that child.

That's pretty impressive. The Bright Futures program in Florida. Yeah, I I think it's like a 3.5 GPA and a 1350 SATs. Some number is Okay, there it is. What does it say? 16 high school credits with a three and a half weight way the GPA weighted GPA

and there's different level academic scholar medallion scholar covers 75%. But here there's there's your rate card. How good did your kid do? You know the discount starts at 50% and goes up.

That's impressive. Yeah, it's not bad. What does this make you think? Like how how do you process this information for a guy that lives in Nevada? Well, I would say, you know, that's why I think Florida's residency is increasing because, you know, some good policies here. I think it's again, at the end of the day, a result of everything that's going on, the academic route is no longer necessary to succeed. So, again, it's still nice. It's still a checkbox. your parents still want you to go. But I think if you're going to go to college and and pursue a degree, it's either you you need it to do the job or you should really get the value out of it by networking and building relationships because at the end of the day, the relationship is more valuable than the education. You're not wrong. I agree.

Listen, I'm 47 years old and I've done okay in business and my Middle Eastern family still says, "But you don't have a college degree." But but but you know, Mary got a college degree. But, you know, Jack got a college degree. When are you going to get your degree? I said, "Mom, I'm still trying to figure life out, you know, trying to see if this business stuff's going to work out or not. But, uh, maybe one day I'll get my act together in my 80s

and, uh, get a college degree. Who knows, Brad, I got I got I got to get serious about life is what I need to do."

By way, all kidding aside, if I was governor, I'd do one more thing here, and I would take out 80% of the liberal arts classes and I would replace it with trade trade school. I love that.

So you could go to You want to go? Guess what? And by the way, I would paying for liberal arts degrees.

And this is what I would do here. You can go learn about heating, air conditioning, and and that on the trade side and take business courses also here at the University of Florida and go out and start that business and serve the people of Florida the rest of your life. Good point. And by the way, you have two trucks today and if you do it right, I want to do two more stories.

I love it. Great idea. What are you gonna say? I would just call your parents and tell them how many degrees you now have.

Yeah. That's what I do. I always say, "I dropped out of high school. Now I've got several PhDs, several MBAs."

They're like, "How how'd you do it? I just hired them." Yeah. So, at the end of the day, you don't need a degree if you can hire them.

It's great. No, listen. that that uh train left a long time ago for me when uh I wanted to be a firefighter and I went to uh the firefighter uh you know place that we had in Granada Hills and I said I want to be a fire they said there's a 5-year freeze listen it's $52,000 a year says there's a 5-year freeze I went and sold insurance by the time I got accepted to go be a firefighter was already making 100 plus a year I said listen I don't want to be a firefighter I'm going to be an insurance guy obviously

do any of the firefighters would have been a firefighter, Tom. 30 years walking around in LA.

That's right. You know, driving around on my, you know, working the ships that they have, which by the way, to anybody that's a firefighter out there, uh, I have tremendous respect for your job. You are very important to any society. It's very hard job. The stories you see about how many people that get injured or hurt. And if you want to know what movie made me want to be a firefighter, can you guess what my age the movie was?

Backdraft. Backdraft. That's right. That was the movie. All right. Uh, let me get to these next couple stories. So, Netflix, check this out. Senate antirust panel chair raises concerns over Netflix Warner deal. This is a Wall Street Journal story. The chairman of the Senate's antirust subcommittee is raising concerns over Netflix's proposed acquisition of the Warner Brothers movie and television studios and HBO Max streaming service. In a letter to Netflix and Warner Discovery leader, Senate Mike Lee said the deal appears to likely raise serious antitrust issues, including the risk of sub substantially lessening competition in streaming markets. Lee's letter was sent to Netflix co-chair executive Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and Warner Discovery Chief Executive David Isastlov. The senator said the deal raises concern with potential abuse of merger review process particularly if an acquirer

obtains competitively sensitive information under the guise of due diligence less chairs the subcommittee of antitrust competition policy and consumer rights under the Senate to jury committee. So Tom, when you're looking at this, they're saying Netflix's deal to require acquire Warner Studios and streaming assets. Netflix has agreed to pay 27 and 3/4 a share in cash in a deal tolling $72 billion. Why is this becoming more complicated than it was supposed to be? Well, because right now um Warner Brothers Discovery, the CEO, David, we call him Zaz, is about to say the board and I have come to a final decision and we have signed. We are now in a merger agreement with Netflix. At that point, the Ellison's are going to elevate their legal fight and they're going to sue and it's going to go then they're going to take it all the way to the Federal Trade Commission and saying we think this is unfair. We think it's

going to lead to a lack of competition and choice for the American consumer. And at that point, the merger lies at the feet of the bureaucrats and the federal government. And so if you're on the Ellison side, you say, "Well, Larry called Don." Don, was that Larry? Listen, I think I'm getting screwed here. They'll they'll take care of it in committee. We'll take a look at it. Yeah. How's the kid? He's doing great. Brought him into the business. Uh do people think that happened? People are saying that that that the Ellison have dropped the dime on um on Trump and Trump's got, you know, one of the federal bureaus responsible for such things for looking into it. I I think it's it's really simple. There's a lot of egos in Hollywood and the offer price is so far up where the stock was trading that um the board at Warner Brothers Discovery is getting tremendous value for their shareholders. And then also

Warner Brothers Discovery is going to create a little tiny absolutely crappy little stock where they're putting all of the cable things into this little stock and then and CNN and all these cable channels are going to be trading on it. And I'd like to know where that stock goes and who they're going to sell it to. I think it's just going to sit on the market flat because where's the increase in cable subs? There isn't any. And they're going to do that. So Netflix buys the big library from Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers Discovery creates this get their shareholders get a bunch of money and then they create this little company that they drop on the um on the market to carry all the cable nets.

Well, I mean if you look at the Khi right now, Khi's a million dollars of volume in this says what's the percentage Rob? 62% Netflix 23 Paramount none before July of 2027. in a year and a half from now 18%. But it looks like, look how close it was. Go to go to right there. When is that? December 26th. Look at December 26th. Go a little bit ahead.

Yeah, that's when the Ellison's announced their hostile takeover. Look at December 27th. Ellison's were ahead. And then next thing you know, the separation more and more and more and more and more. It looks like they want Netflix to take this deal over. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen here. Let me get to this last story with Disney and we'll wrap up. Disney Co Succession drama is hurting the stock price. It's time to wrap the Disney CEO Succession race and bring a happy ending to one executive castmate because the drawn out process being led by Morgan Stanley chair is weighing on its stock like a stretch of bad movies. We wouldn't expect the company to address leadership succession during upcoming earnings call, but do anticipate resolution of this matter over the very near-term. JP Morgan analyst David Carnovski wrote in a note on Tuesday, "While the changes uh is not likely to result in major

strategic shift, we do believe the uncertainty around the process has been an overhang to shares and CAS and announcement and see visibility into a smooth transition process." Disney reports earning on February 2nd. Shares of the entertainment giant have been down 1% over the past year as uncertainty on who will replace legendary co Irres persisted. And a lot of people are asking this question, Tom, what what's going to happen here? Do you feel like Bob Iger is just kind of holding the whole thing together and he's got to step out of the way? Because reports came today with Starbucks. Do you know what reports were today with Starbucks with the new CEO Brian Nickel?

What were the numbers? What were the numbers that came? Great. He turned the corner and he announced profitability and growth.

Beautiful. That's what happens. That's his job. That's his job. And Bob is not doing that the last five years. it is time for him to step down and find somebody else. Some of the decisions they made with the board was embarrassing, was pathetic. And then as well as the good news is Kathleen Kennedy finally is done December 31st of 2025. She was the face of wokeness for Disney where I don't know what the percentage was with how many the characters were part of the LGBT Q community and the cartoons that they were producing. They forgot who their customers were. Starbucks remembered who their customers were now with Brian Nickel as the CEO. Disney needs to go find somebody. Tom, your thoughts on this story. Bob Iger is Barack Obama.

Wow. Barack Obama. Now the board is asking who wants to be Joe Biden and follow Barack Obama. and they're going to have a real tough time finding somebody that bridges streaming, getting people back into um the theme parks and getting growth on the theme parks, growth under licensing, growth on all the cable nets, including ESPN, which has been laying people off and tightening up rather than expanding, and then growing the actual you movie side of the business, which has had issues. as the American consumer says, "Why do you keep putting these hidden cues in all my kids movies? I'm not liking this." So, who wants to be Joe Biden and follow Bob Iger with that playing field and go do it? I think the board's having a tough time of finding somebody that can navigate that.

Brad, I'll volunteer. I'll do it. Really? As long as Okay, but what would you do? No. No. But wait a minute. Play that out. Play that out. What would you do? You're the SEO. What are you doing?

I would just go in there and use common sense. I mean, you know, the everything that that I think happens at those companies is all agenda driven, you know,

period. Like, why are they putting that crap in the videos and the movies and the theme parks, right?

And then and then when the conspiracy nuts go crazy with it, you know, it hurts stock price and it and it stifens stifles growth. So, I would go in there and just get back to the old school, you know, of entertainment pure and easy. You know, I'd risk some of all that money they have stocked up and I would make some some new products and some new characters. When's the last new character like a Smash character? I don't know. But what I can tell you is it is a place that can have such a massive upside. Knowing Bob Iger, Tom, do you think, okay, let me ask you this. Do you think Bob Iger wants a Brian Nickel to come in and crush it at Disney and take it from 200 billion to a trillion dollar valuation in the next 5 years?

In the celebrity battle of the egos, no. Okay, perfect. So, guess what? You think the board wants it? You hope they do. Do you think shareholder want it? Of course they do.

Absolutely. Because they're in. So, to me, I don't know. I think this is a place where a killer CEO that is in their 40s, late 30s, 40s, early 50s, that has a track record of has having some success who can go in and turn things around. I I would be going like this if I'm them. Who are the existing 10 Brian Nickels in a marketplace? 10 Brian Nickels that have already proven success in a different company. I would want to say, "Hey, I I would entertain this. I wouldn't entertain wanting to do something like this. I think there's a lot of opportunity and common sense upside. You know how Trump went in and all of a sudden he's like he's doing tariffs. Why didn't I think of people are saying why didn't I think about this? He's going to go Greenland. How come the other president he's going to go expand? How come he's going to go take the How come? How come how come the previous presidents didn't think about

it? He's a businessman. That's right. And these other guys are not. So imagine if somebody goes into Disney, there's probably five, 10, 15 basic things you could do to win the customers over. It's not that complicated to do. Yes, it's a small country. Yes, Disney was worth $388ish billion dollars four years ago or five years ago. Yes, they made the mistake with co-CEOs. That never works when you have co-CEOs. Most of the time it's catastrophic. Someone's got to be the decision maker. Yes, he got in the way of Shapeek making it because I I was pretty much running the company from a distance, but to me, um I I'd love to see somebody put their name in the hat and say, "Hey, consider me. I'll come in and do some stuff here, but I don't know if they're going to let a real driver co get the job."

I can't believe they're still talking about this. Because it was a a year ago, you and I were sitting down. remember that we sat there for like two hours and you were articulating the strategic plan that you could put in place to turn Disney around from the content side to the theme park side to the conversion of um media to what do you do differently in cable? How do you navigate the um uh the podcast realm and what's happening on streaming? I remember that we sat there for two hours with this full strategic lens and then we said, "Do you think Disney's board has people strong enough to do it?" Because they need to listen, I I uh I actually put where my, you know, my money where my mouth is. I am pro- optimistic Disney long-term long. I think it's a trillion dollar company. I think it is. I think it's a valuebased company that I think has an upside to be a trillion dollars. the amount of assets

they own. Somebody needs to come in that's a businessman to turn that thing around and make it a trillion auto company. Disney with the right seal can be a trillion auto company within five years. Within five years,

aren't birth rates in decline? Decline? Yes. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, Disney's generally focused towards the children, the kids.

So, I think they whoever takes over needs to factor in that if birth rates are going down, there's less and less customers being generated. So, you might want to shift your focus on uh all the customers over there,

teenagers and some adults. Well, I mean Disney, why can't they make more adultlike movies?

You know what they could also do? They could also make a new character, a hero that is building a family because a lot of us, we became somebody we looked up to in a movie. Rocky, I want to grow up and be Rocky. I want to grow up and be Chris Gardner from Pursuit of Happiness where what's his name played in it. I want to grow up to be whoever. Movies have a massive influence on a lot of people running for office. I just said backdraft earlier of being a firefighter. That was a great movie for we were with the NASCAR uh uh owners, the ladies like I I like days of Thunder when Tom Cruz did it because it brought a lot of attention to us, but I wasn't a big fan of Tallaladega Nights because it made fun of our sport. Remember Tallaladega Nights with uh Dear Baby Jesus, you know, when he starts doing this Ricky Bobby. Yeah.

So movies have power, but they're right movies and they're not using that power that they have. Anyways,

uh Bryant, great to have you on. Good seeing you again as usual. Uh where would you like people to go if they want to learn more about what you're doing? Is it Lightseed?

Yeah, Lightspeedvt or instant. Lightspeedvt.com. Beautiful. Can we put both of those links below? Uh folks, if you want to go learn more about it, go to Lightseed VT, watch that video for yourself to see what these folks do at Lightseed VT. With that being said, Michael Cohen, yes, the Michael Cohen was here yesterday. We did a two and a half hour podcast together. He said stuff that the world's going to react to it. This is Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, that turned and all the stories that happened with it. He held nothing back two and a half hours. It was very He got very emotional. It'll be released tomorrow morning, Rob, I believe, at 9:00 a.m.

Stay tuned. You're going to go crazy. You're going to say, "Why the hell would Pat do this?" The question was also, "Why the hell would he do this?" You'll get the answer to the question tomorrow. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727"?

Brad Lee (Guest).

What is "Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727" about?

The discussion centers on the recent significant developments involving Trump's efforts to rebuild in Los Angeles, a $68 million legal case against Google concerning privacy violations, and substantial layoffs at UPS affecting 30,000 employees amidst rising energy costs. The conversation also touches on workplace dynamics and leadership challenges, exemplified by a controversial incident…

What is mentioned in this PBD Podcast episode?

22 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Artificial Intelligence, Brad Lee, California, Google LLC, Donald Trump, Amazon. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump's LA Rebuild TAKEOVER, Google's $68M Spying Case, UPS Layoffs + Energy Costs EXPLODE | PBD 727"?

The episode runs 2 h 14 min; the transcript is about 26,516 words in 360 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 28, 2026.