Latest / Beat The Odds with Dre, Rodney, & Brylan / Doing More With Less, the Fable 5 Reversal & Why China Might Be the Unnamed Winner

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Doing More With Less, the Fable 5 Reversal & Why China Might Be the Unnamed Winner · Beat The Odds with Dre, Rodney, & Brylan

• Dre: Yo, what's good, man? We we're here today, back with another episode. We wit out Bryan today, but ⁓ but this all good. It's all good. He has some work stuff coming up, but we got ⁓ we got some good topics for today, man. How you doing? Rodney: I'm doing good, man. I'm doing good. We're halfway through well, we're more than halfway through the week because July 4th is on Saturday. And then not all companies, but a lot of companies are are taking off Friday. And also when you have these holidays, I don't know about you, but people are usually not working that much. I notice people are not doing as as many, you know, PRs or co reviews. even though, you know, w we're supposed to be working. So huh, I know I'm getting my stuff up but yeah, it seems a little bit slower. Dre: Yeah. I see the same thing. I didn't even realize it was a holiday, honestly. So I I I got my I got the blinders on because I'm like, as far as I'm concerned, we're working every day this week. but but we are we are giving our team the the day off on Friday. It was already on the calendar. Again, I didn't even realize it because I've just been so heads down. But yeah, it it it does seem like that around the holidays people slow down. Specifically like particularly ⁓ like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know about you, but when it gets that time of year. Rodney: Yeah. right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ for sure. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Dre: It's just like you ain't you ain't getting nothing done. Nobody cares about nothing. Like it's just it's it's tough. And I remember last year on that time trying to close the deal, trying to close this this acquisition. We closed it the week of Christmas. And bro, it took so much energy for me to get that deal done, bro. Because everybody was trying to get us to delay it. Everybody was like, No, let's just wait to after the holidays. Let's just wait. Let and I'm like, No, I'm not waiting. Yeah, I'm like, no, I'm not waiting. I'm not waiting. I'm like, I don't want to wait. But like Rodney: Mm-hmm. ⁓ 'cause yeah, travelling, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna lose it by then. You'll lose it by then. Yeah, yeah. That's a trap. Dre: No everybody was dragging their feet, bro. It was just like it was like quick like pulling people w against quicksand. Like it w it was pretty crazy, man. So yeah, I am seeing the same thing as we approach July fourth. But nevertheless, I'm happy that the people are gonna have a day off. Hopefully people get refreshed. I know the burnout is real, man. I talk to people I work with and just in general, bro, and the consistent theme right now is people are doing more with less. Even though they do have tools, right? And you're you have more tools. Rodney: Ha ha. Yeah. Right. Dre: ⁓ less in terms of resources, maybe less in terms of capital, less in terms of team members, people, whatever it may be. People are just being anxious to do more. So the burnout is real, man. So hopefully people have some ⁓ get some time to rest this weekend. Rodney: Yeah, I hope people do get a time to rest. And I can relate to the burnout feeling. Although for me, I think it's a little bit more self-imposed because I think that I a lot of steps to perform well for my job. And I'm continuing every week trying to get more efficient, naturally as an engineer, but the idea of having less resources and trying to do more. with those and just being more resourceful, it it definitely can be straining. It it's it's always easier to do everything when you can kind of afford to waste. When you just have a bunch of resources and everything's abundant and it doesn't really matter how much time it takes, doesn't really matter it you can get tasks done easily. Or maybe even the deadlines are not that tight. That's another thing I see is The urgency around deadlines seem to be tighter these days. used to be, at least for example, engineering. I can't speak for everything, but for engineering, it used to be one for every like two weeks. If you could get one feature done every two weeks, you you were like top. You were good. If you can get two done, you were next level, 10x engineer is what they probably call you. That seems to be like the minimum like the the the the minimum you gotta be doing we do multiple PRs and for those of that don't know PRs are just code changes that gotta get reviewed by other engineers typically they're like features or or pieces of a feature we gotta do two to three of those a day Dre: Do you feel like we're in this maybe productivity boom right now? Like maybe a silent one where it's not I mean, we are in war, but it's not like we're like in the US like preparing for a world where all factories are building tanks and stuff like that. So we're not in that necessarily mode right now. But do you feel like we're in like this pr productivity mode as a as a country? Rodney: feel that personally. It if if if the country feels that way too, then that would make sense. But definitely personally, I think that I've been trying to do more with the time that I have. I've been trying to do way more with the time I have. I've been doing for example, one one thing that that we've done on our podcast in the in the last week or so is really been embracing Dre: Mm. Rodney: Codex to automate a lot of the things on the back office of beat the odds. because we don't have the resource for an assistant right now, some of these things kind of get into the backlog. We know we need to do it. We want to do it. We know it's good. It'll help grow our audience, help grow our podcast, opportunities, Maybe even money, revenue, who knows? But Now, because of all these tools, I've been able to use utilize, or we've been able to utilize things like codecs, cowork, etc., to automate lot of tasks that normally would have to be delegated to an assistant or would to done by us. And that comes from not looking at it from a standpoint of Yeah, we want to grow the podcast, but it's also, at least for me, this pressure of okay, just because you don't have the resource or you don't feel like you have enough time to do it, doesn't mean that there's not a way to do it efficiency efficiently and quickly. So it's almost feeling like at least for me, some I feel a little bit more pressure because it feels like the amount of excuses go down. So for example If someone, if if, if a product manager or CEO comes to me, or our CEO comes to me and says, hey, build this by the end of the week. Because of all these tools, it feels like you can't say no. just feels like, it feels like you can't say no. It's well, why can't you get it done in in two days? Why can't you get it done? It just feels that so yeah, maybe we are if other are experiencing that, then yeah, sure. But I definitely experience it. Dre: Yeah. Rodney: ⁓ but I'm also it's bleeding into other aspects of of of my life too. Dre: Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely I definitely that on in on my side as well. One that we recently started rolling out across all of our all of my companies, ⁓ to our team. So we do like quarterly KPIs, right? Where we have metrics that that each person kind of needs to be responsible for. And ⁓ as as of those KPIs that we we've been kind of rolling out as we kind of get ready and prepare for the next couple quarters. Is around innovation and automation. And so like we're mandating like and benchmarking people weekly as we check these scorecards, we call ⁓ scorecards of like, what are you automating? What are you taking what what of your what's on your plate that you are automating? What can you remove from your plate? What can you delegate that you cannot do? An agent can do somebody else can do other than you. And then we go to person, what are you doing to automate this? Like everything that we're trying to Rodney: No. Dre: Essentially the whole the whole mandate is around automation and and and innovating. And so it's forcing people to be more productive. It's forcing people to ask a different set of questions when they're given a task, when they're given an assignment, a project to get something done. it it's changing it's changing how they think about approaching it. So yeah, I mean I I'm definitely feeling it at at my level and on the headlines that I'm seeing, it seemed like as a country we're kind of feeling it. Especially with like you're seeing I saw recently, I think it was Microsoft doing another round of layoffs, if I'm not mistaken. Like another two percent of their team. think Meta might have announced something as well. But there's there's still this trimming from from big tech happening and just in in the economy in general. And so I think I think in general people are moving faster. People are moving faster, people are doing things faster, people are moving with more urgency. I think Rodney: Jeez. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Dre: You know, we talked about the economy being this K-shaped economy. People are sh hurting. So people are getting multiple jobs. I know I got multiple multiple contracts, multiple businesses. I'm like, I'm stacking up everything. I'm gonna go as far as I can take this shit to a crumble. Like so yeah, it's yeah, it's it's a it's it's a different speed that I s I I see the the country is moving in right now. Rodney: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ It's definitely a different speed for sure. and I have some mentality too. I'm trying to take on as much as I can to see what the limit is on my capacity. Because right now I keep being surprised by the amount of things I can do with these added tools. And I'm really referring to AI, whether it's Chat GBT or Cloud or These days, Codex is one of my my favorite things that I use, where it can control and do things on my computer for me. so that just frees up so much bandwidth with the which then naturally s tells me, okay, well, I don't have an excuse not to do this or this or that. So I try to act I try to get much more on my plate just to push the boundaries of in in some ways. So basic so basically the pressure. It's forcing me to look for efficien efficiency. and it's what you mentioned about the jobs, it's an unfortunate reality of AI, and we've talked about this on a couple of podcasts. ⁓ because there are there are really two s two contradictory narratives stories that are going around. and you have first group who are just denying the fact that AI is gonna wipe out jobs. And we say that's not true. AI is definitely wiping out jobs, there's layoffs, there is efficiency gains, and efficiency gains usually mean that there's not as many people needed, ⁓ there's smaller teams needed, etc. And for example, in a report that came out in June, the end of June, one of the biggest jobs that got hit was call center jobs. So a lot of customer service roles were eliminated due to the automation of voice agents and things like that. Another thing that we're seeing is that jobs so there is a little bit of hope, right? So jobs are being but they are being recreated. And I think what the issue might be is that based on some of the facts and stories that are out there is is the amount of time it takes for those jobs to appear. So the general consensus is that new jobs are being gained at AI intensive companies between six and twelve months, which that's a pretty long time, especially if Dre: No. Mm-hmm. Rodney: the people who are replaced don't yet have the skill set for those jobs. So then that six months or twelve months can end up being twelve to eighteen months or twelve to twenty-four months, which is a very long time when you're in the mode of survival. So so there's there there's these valid concerns about the transitional period. And so I think people are downplaying that a bit, although I think people are ultimately right about the long term that I think jobs will be fine in the long term. But whether or not you can stretch through that 12, 24 month period, that that that that could get that that might be a bit difficult. And another thing has been shown is the people who are spending a lot of AI or the companies that are spending a lot of AI are increasing their headcount the fastest, including entry-level jobs. So that's another good sign. So essentially new companies that are embracing AI, et cetera. They are seeing a lot of growth in head account and they are also high entry level. Now, these are just early looks into how the economy forming. This is all happening in real time. So nobody really knows how it's all going to play out, but it looks like the projections are AI is driving a large percentage of growth of GDP. Some are saying upwards of 50-50%. Dre: Okay. Rodney: Is gonna be due to AI. So that's gonna be a big deal. And then you have some blue-collar jobs with with the data centers, but that won't always be forever once a lot of that gets built. Dre: Hmm. It's interesting, right? Cause we we've had this conversation before. I'm a history nerd, so I'm always like trying to go back and look at parallels between events that have happened before and kind of ground them into what's happening today. Doesn't always it's not always one to one, right? Like things change. There's a lot of different variables at play, but I think there is some some crossover. And so I went back and I was looking and in fact in the nineteen fifties. ⁓ you know, when computers in in in nineteen forties really, when computers first started to become on the scene, there were a lot of headlines and people in coming out in public basically saying that automation would devalue human labor just as much as the revolution kind of devalued physical strength. Right. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, if you were a male and you were very strong and capable, you had tremendous value, right? To a farm, to ⁓ a manufacturing facility, right? To just business to commerce. You had a lot of a lot of value. Equipment comes out, now that value isn't there. And so there was this a lot of people coming out, a lot of smart people too at the time coming out and basically warning of this automation basically devaluing human labor and it's going to charge a a big economic And peak of this kind of happened in the 50s and the 60s. and a lot of blue collar unions worried about factory automation displacing workers. ⁓ and in fact, you had a lot of labor unions that were writing to like President Johnson at the time telling him that hey, computer automations are coming, it's gonna create a bunch of permanent job loss, you know, we need to they were having conversations about basic income, right? This is again, this is in the 50s, right? There was this conversation, same conversation we're having now about basic income. People not gonna be able to find jobs. And by the late 70s and by the 70s and 80s, that tone had kind of shifted, right? Rodney: Yeah. Dre: and that the mass unemployment that we were anticipating in the 50s, 40s, 50s, and 60s actually never really materialized. And instead, employment started to grow. And so it kind of fed into what you kind of talked about, Rodney. And so, you know, as productivity, you know, kind of rose because automation came on the on on the on the block, ⁓ companies started hiring more. Companies started growing. You started seeing bigger valuations, you started seeing companies. go to new markets. Now they could expand internationally if they were only a domestic company, right? Now they ha could have the workforce to to be able to do that to support that. So you started to see a lot of new opportunities, new jobs, new frontiers come on the on the horizon because of the shift. And so I go back and forth about it, right? Part of me is like, again, if we're successful in the in mi in in the mission of of AGI, then it's hard for me to see how some of these white collar jobs exist. But then again, if you look at the the natural historical art to the to the same, you know, same kind of narrative, new jobs get created, companies get larger. We're for the first time seeing trillion dollar companies. I never thought I would see that before. And so maybe this same cycle is actually taking place that we kind of saw in the in the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies. And so, yeah, I I just think it's kinda interesting. Rodney: Yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think I I think that that historical point is a good one. it show that people in general we in general people typically are not usually embracing change and we typically resist change. There's probably some benefits to always embracing change. If if society was always changing ev all the time, what maybe there would be a lack of stability and w and I think that we need that. But I it does sound like those some those fears ⁓ ⁓ maybe overstated, but they felt real at that time. So that that does that does count for something. And I would say that when I think about what is a job, I don't have a perfect definition, but what the reason why I think that jobs exist no matter what is because I think a job is simply who do you point to who's responsible for a given output. And even if you have AI, I can't see us letting of responsibility. Just hey, just open AI responsible for everything. Cloud. Is responsible I I can't see a world where To me the a job is needs to get done, who's gonna who's gonna get that done irregardless of the tool that gets used to get it done. And I AI and AGI and superintelligence will have all these little metaphorically, these little knobs, in which case it'll be somebody's responsibility to turn those knobs to get a certain result. And so, that may be where the job lies. Then there might be a question of value, which that might be the harder question, I think, is do you value the jobs? Dre: Mm. Rodney: That because i that th that might be a bit harder. but I can see jobs still existing 'cause the responsibility factor. I think we always need somebody to point the finger to. Like, hey, this is this is this was your job. Hey, you were supposed to get that done. You're and now the big companies can't be the ones that absorb all the responsibility. so it would have to be individuals who are deploying these things for specific purposes. And it can't be the government either. So so that so that that's how I see that. But it that's kind of vague though. Again, this is like future stuff we're talking about. So I really don't know. I don't have the answer. But I do think though that the transition is not going to be the smoothest for everybody. And I think that's what a lot of people are ultimately worried about is that even though that there might be this promised land That journey to that promised land might get a bit bumpy. And everybody is not going to handle that the same way. Some people will be more hurt by that than others. And some people will glide over it and maybe not even feel that at all. So that'll be interesting to see. another thing in the AI conversation is. Today, July first, Anthropic got the bans the government lifted off of their model fable. They announced this yesterday. I believe on the thirty first or the thirtieth. I forgot I ⁓ it day that was, but That's good news for a topic. I think the only thing, though, is that. When you read their messaging, they put that with some coding task, which they have not defined what they are. that Fable will pull back to So their current model. And I don't know how they'll handle the pricing or or will they be clear about them doing that. But I think ultimately though, this is a good move by the government to lift these bands. It looks like they were c collaborating and they got to a model that they thought could come out and would be fine. This model is less powerful than than Mythos. Again, we don't know exactly by how much, but that's just the general statement or sentiment. But this is a this is a this is a win for AI, but but hopefully We don't see this type of behavior going forward with every new model release. Dre: Yeah, I hope not. I hope that the isn't being set that new model releases have to be review undergo essentially government review. I ⁓ I go back and forth on the export controls, right? Because I think I think initially I was probably on the bands of let's not export these models to places like China for, you know, whatever reasons. But the reality is that It doesn't slow them down. It doesn't slow them down, right? So it really the qu the question is, does it really matter in the long run? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I think regardless, US companies need to stay competitive. And I think the only thing that will force us to be competitive is if we have really respectable competition. And at this current moment, if you sit China to the side for a second. Rodney: No. Dre: Then US AI companies don't really have any respectable competition. It's just really amongst just really amongst ourselves. And so if we're talking about a technology and an infrastructure that is so critical to society, so impactful to medicine, so impactful to space exploration, so impactful economically, so just just impactful across many different dimensions, then I think that that level of comp that that competition pool needs to Rodney: Yeah, no, not at all. Dre: To widen, at least on an international level, certainly in America as well, which we'll talk about a new upstart, this take it all NVIDIA, which I'm actually really excited about. Because I think competition in this space is needed in order for us to continue to be on the on the frontier, which we are right now, but that position may w may not and probably will most likely won't last forever. So I do think we should be careful tread lightly in terms of how ⁓ the government kind of manages this. I know Dario, Sam, and others have been calling for government regulation. Some people have their own opinions about why that is. Some people are had that perspective that they're asking for this for anti competitive reasons. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But whatever the reason is, I I'm just I'm hoping that the government doesn't ⁓ get in the way too much and end up hurting the country and hurting our progress, ⁓ more than they think it actually is helping us. Rodney: For sure, for sure. I think the ban kind of surprise me a bit 'cause I didn't take this administration I didn't take this administration as one that would slow down AI development and so I was surprised by it. I'm happy that they've lifted it. So that's ultimately good. But I think I don't know, man. I I definitely don't want anybody to get in the way of AI development. selfishly, I'm getting so much value out of AI that I just want to continue to get as much value and intelligence as possible. I want it I want them to ride intelligence wave as high as it will possibly go. As high as they can possibly take it. That's where I want it to go. Because the benefits of extreme intelligence is so high that it seems worth It just seems worth whatever the risks are that a lot of people are talking about, because a lot of them can be mitigated with super intelligence. Now, I see people's concern about safety and whatnot, but I think that's why we have to account for the fact that we have not been able to slow down our competitors. And right now, that really is just China. I think China. ⁓ Is doing a handful of things right now that are showing that, hey, we're strong too. And I think AI is one of those things. For example, the latest GLM models, which are open source models, they're saying that some of these models matching GPT five point five and claw's models. And these are open source, so they're a lot cheaper to run for engineers. They can get something like open code, a subscription for five dollars a month, run these models. Of course, charges vary on usage, but in general, team an or a team can save two, sometimes three or four X. on the amount of money they're spending, which is ha which has have been which has been a conversation. Lately, as far as models, the amount that they cost to run and how intensive they are. So we I don't think there's any future that we want where China has super intelligent models and we don't. Like just don't think there's a single future where we want that. We already have from my standpoint a handful of vulnerabilities and I'll talk about the three ones that I see. The first one I think was TikTok. I think TikTok being owned by a Chinese company, by dan by dance, and having tons of influence over teenagers but but also young adults our country, I think that was an extreme vulnerability. I'm glad that we addressed that and we found a way to get that under United States primarily just because social media is more powerful than it seems. People spend hours a day on like TikTok. And these things, the videos, the type of content, the type of things that people can and cannot say do influence the social fabric of things. So I think that that was a vulnerability that It seemed like we got some control over. I would say the second one would be with cars, they started beating us with electric vehicles on price. And I think our response to that was to ⁓ some type of taxes or other fees or tariffs or something along the lines of that that made it so that. electric cars weren't gonna be able to be imported and underc and undercutting and beating American vehicles. And their response was just to turn those cars into hybrid cars. And they got around that, around a lot of those fees. And they still are undercutting. So that's another thing. So they're not so not just there were they competing on social media, which they beat us at 'cause TikTok was literally unstoppable. It still is probably unstoppable. Then with the cars, they beat us they can make high quality cars cheaper. They beat us at that. We tried to block that. Then they made hybrids, which we we have to take, it sounds like. I guess we don't have to do anything, but that's what it sounds like we're currently at. And then you have the third thing, which is AI. So we'll make something with AI. And then they're like, okay, well we could do that. And then we can also offer it cheaper. And so, what China is basically showing us is that they don't care at all. They don't care about the rules that we play by. If we are doing something expensive and slow, and we're calling it high quality, they're basically saying we can do that same quality, faster, and cheaper. That's what they're saying at every single level. And there's a lot of different vulnerabilities that come along with all that. And from can't lie to you. This is starting to look like we are struggling to compete on multiple levels. And we should really be concerned about this stuff. Now, not concerned where we should all go out in a panic in a frenzy and we don't know what we need to do. No, I think we need to lock in. I think we need to lock in. America seems to have seems to have gotten complacent. Prices are out of control. We are inefficient. And I think that maybe. This AI wave and this product productivity boom be helping us become more efficient. Yeah, okay. Meta, whoever whoever you wanna name is letting go of a lot of people do true efficiency. You know what? So what? So what? The government letting go of a ton of people for efficiency. So It is not good to be inefficient. It isn't it that is not good. I think we need to remember that our place in the world is earned. We don't deserve a spot in in the number one place. In fact, people want to be in our spot. And we have to remember that. So every time that we see efficiency. gains, even if it comes with some pain, some cutbacks. I think we should be celebrating. Dre: I agree with you. It's happening with China specifically with the car situation is kind of bittersweet, especially both being from Michigan, growing up in the Detroit area. I'm sure you know tons of people. I mean, the whole dream a lot of people that are born in Detroit is like and it's it's unfortunate, but this is kind of the dream sometimes for a lot of people there is to grow up, graduate high school. Rodney: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dre: get a job at one of the big the big factories, get a nice check, you know what I'm saying? Get you a charger or something like that. And you just be good. Just ride out right out in the sunset. You know what I'm saying? That that's if you if you hit that, you've kind of hit the peak of of of Detroit ⁓ culture, right? You like in terms of job and opportunities for the most part. That was that was the that was the longstanding thought. Right. ⁓ Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. And and real quick, and real quick, there was generational wealth. The generations before the the younger generation, they were able to buy most my granddad bought multiple houses off a job from GM. Generational wealth. We still own those like the generational wealth was made off of off this stuff. Like ⁓ is so yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Dre: A hundred percent. Hundred percent. Yeah. Chance. No, no, you you bring up a good point, bro. No, for sure. Same thing. My gr my granddad worked at General Motors for years. Like sent kids to co sent kids to college. Like you you're right. It it it it ⁓ was a respectable and and well sought and desired career in the city. And not only just the the the auto manufacturers, but you got their suppliers. So if you didn't get into one of the big three, then luckily I can just go to a supplier. Rodney: Right. Right. Yeah. Dre: And make the seats or just go make some and make components for the car, right? Like I'm still in the ecosystem. There's this whole ecosystem there. over the years, we've slowly seen factories close. We've slowly seen suppliers die. We've slowly seen these jobs export to places like Mexico or to other cheaper places. We've seen you how the the the impact that China is having. Rodney: Right. Yeah. Dre: on the auto market. And these cars aren't being sold here, but a lot of these auto companies compete internationally. And so you know, I I I recently went to Mexico City earlier this year. BYD was everywhere. Every Uber, every taxi you you you you held, it was a BYD. It was nothing else. This is a Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world. I think it I think it's only second to like Tokyo. Like Rodney: Cheers. Dre: BYD was everywhere, marketing was everywhere. Chinese financial apps was being marketed everywhere. Like it was and and what I thought about that was like, wow, it is so crazy how quickly China has infiltrated these other these these markets with these electric cars and markets that Detroit automakers have been competing in for almost a century. and so it's it's it's starking, and that's only an auto, and that's only an automotive. And so It's happening across the whole gamut. And so back to your point about, you know, the US staying competitive, we have to. and so yeah, it's it's very unfortunate what's happening that side. I don't even know what the answer is. I mean, even German German automakers are waking up to it. I think I posted in the chat or we were talking about like Volkswagen, or I don't even know if we talked about it, but Volkswagen announced their la land off a ⁓ amount of people. Yeah, a hundred a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand employees. They're shattering fa shattering factories. And I mean Rodney: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I saw that. Hundred thousand, I think. Dre: And they're sp and I mean that's like the number one automaker right now, in terms of volume. So China is is impacting everybody. Whoever didn't take them serious, that was a huge mistake because they are they they're a real adversary in technology, in manufacturers, in pharmaceuticals, in critical res minerals, right? critical minerals in computing, in models, right? Like they're they're a real adversary across the board. And so, yeah, whoever thought they weren't serious before ⁓ That's a critical mistake. Rodney: I'll be honest with you. We are winning because of work of our ancestors. Dre: Yeah. Yeah. Rodney: Our current generation weak. current generation, ⁓ even the one that raised us up is is they're weak. We are the weakest generation. The ones that are coming up even younger than us, they're even weaker than that. And I have to say it. I just have to it. I just have to say it because I don't know nobody's saying it, but it is what it is. We have the weakest people. Dre: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Rodney: The most sensitive people, the most laziest people, the most inefficient people. Everybody wants to be comfortable. Everybody wants to be relaxed. Everybody, I hear this all the time. I I just want to be comfortable. How much do I gotta make to be comfortable? every how how much ice cream did I need to get? can I get some Ben and Jerry's? Where where I get crumble? Where where ⁓ the new drink? Like what like what are we talking about, guys? Dre: Yeah. Rodney: spending how is it on average we're spending four, five, six hours on social media per day? Are we not embarrassed? Are we not embarrassed? Are we not embarrassed? We are literally on a steep deep are showing up. People don't even care. People walk outside, go to the store, go to the movies in pajamas. People don't even care. Dre: Man, that's crazy. Rodney: People people don't even care anymore. And you gotta we gotta we have to just wake up. People don't care. And if they don't care about Man, I c I can say a lot, but I'll say this much. Dre: We should ban ⁓ we should ban social media in this country for kids. Like I kids should not be using social media. Rodney: I I think so. I think so. I i i it's just rotten the brain. It's just rotten the brain. Dre: The d we have enough data. We have enough data now. I I could see the last generation where it was like, Okay, we got we gotta get enough data points. We d we don't quite know. we know now. We we we have enough information now to know. Rodney: ⁓ s it's the Yeah. Yeah. Zuck Zuck try make it seem like, it may it may not it may or may not be because of social media. No, it it is. It is. It is. It is. It's clear. It's it's clear. And there and so we have less people. And in fact, we have a whole different culture. Dre: It is. Rodney: Of just, I would say what I see a lot of is victim mentality. I see a lot of victim mentality. I see a lot of the economy is so bad, there's no opportunity, there's no way I can figure it out. There's I'm not taking away from the facts of the matter that there are challenges that they're out there, and I see that. but what I'm also seeing is ⁓ A productivity boom, as we talked about, and I'm also seeing super tools that can be used at almost any facet of your life if you embrace them. And I that we have to ⁓ do something before get forced to do something. And if I had guess, we are going to get forced to do something. If I had to guess. Now, hopefully that forcing isn't so drastic to where like it it it's so much panic. But when people are complacent, typically it something has to happen to wake somebody up. And and that can also happen on a wider scale culturally. Because if you look at it, you essentially just said, like on a macro scale, you go to other countries and you'll see Chinese cars everywhere that we used to dominate. So you're basically saying the only reason why they're not dominating in the United States is because we're holding up the companies. holding them up. We're we're we're we just have too much pride to let them come in here and compete. That's actually the same thing with TikTok. We have to say, hey, look, hey, we need to control TikTok because we can't compete Facebook and everybody else, we cannot compete with TikTok. And what are they showing us? I mean, what else do they need to show us? They we cannot compete. I mean, what else what what else do we need see? Everything they do, they can do it better and cheaper and faster. And they don't care about we we don't k believe in copying and they don't they'll they'll steal your shit immediately. They'll copy your shit immediately and not care at all and laugh in your face, put it out for free. They don't care. Dre: Mm-hmm. Rodney: They a respectable competitor. And I like, I like it. As a competitor to myself, I like that. And I and I think that we should embrace that, and embrace that and try to be more efficient. Not try to be, we should be more efficient and should take more control over our culture and stop allowing all this If you were to and I see small signs it. Companies are being more efficient. Governments are trying to be more efficient. Lor go people in the government. We're trying to be more efficient with the food stamps. Okay. We can't give everybody a tons of food stamps. Okay, cool. Student loans, okay. Okay. We lish out all deferred those for 15 years. Okay, we need that money now. We need we need a little bit, we need that money now. Like we we're we're you can see on multiple fronts. that we are trying to get a little bit more strict. And you can see also where we intended to do the right thing originally. So for example They cut graduate loans by a large amount. And some people might not like that, but their original intent was to allow people to go to graduate school so that if that money wasn't the barrier, as long as they had the talent and the and the will and the drive to do it. But then what ended up happening was was that the cost of graduate school just went up because the colleges were like, you know, why not? Why not? already know they're gonna get. Tons of money from these graduate loans, why not raise the price? And then you see that all over the place. You see that also with with food stamps. I saw a clip in court where they were talking about sugary drinks, whether or not they should be on the snap benefits. And people have a lot of philosophical views. But one thing that, yeah, one thing that they couldn't they couldn't answer was how there is a conflict of interest. Dre: Yeah, I saw that. Rodney: With these companies and these lobbyists, where you say you we should people should be able to get those, but at the same time, those businesses profit off of people having sugar addictions. Those bits those businesses profit off of people getting their products. There's are people not that Coke does not want their product. To not be covered by the government, that's easy bread. That's easy bread. Why would they want to lose that government income? The this unhealthy food that people are building businesses off of, do you really think they want to get cut off from the government money? They eat enough the government too, just through the business. Meanwhile, that's also making people sicker because this the sugar addictions, et cetera. So essentially what I'm saying is that we Dre: Mm-hmm. Rodney: Try to do the right thing, sometimes by trying to do the right thing, we end up going too far and doing the wrong thing, and then we get put in a bad position. We might say, Okay, people deserve, for example, I've heard this thing of people deserve sweets. Even if you're broke, you deserve, you know, a treat here and there. I agree. So, how about this? Well, your basic gets supported through government benefit, so all regular food, healthy food, whole foods, etc. But if you want to treat It's two extra dollars. Grab a cookie if you want one. Your your food is paid for. You got two dollars. not disrespect people. Let's not disrespect people. They got a couple dollars for a cupcake at the gas station. I if if they're paying if if if all their food is taken care of by the government, the basics food, the healthy nutritional food, they got a few extra dollars for some sweets. It's not about if they deserve it or not. It's not a punishment. Dre: Yeah. Rodney: It's about priorities. There's a lot of different things like that across the government. And I know that people see it differently, but I think it's because we have gotten used to complacency and coddling and victim mindset. I think people like China are laughing at that. I think they're laughing at that. I really think they're laughing at that. I honestly think they don't respect us. And probably because we don't currently respect ourselves. We don't currently respect ourselves. Look at our environment. Dre: Mm. Rodney: And I'm not talking about just like the cleanliness of it, just what we're willing to sell, what we're willing to allow, the standard that are lowering. are my takes. These are my views, man. but I like them. I love China. I love what they're doing because I think you need a strong enemy sometimes to to to make you rise to the occasion. And I think we we have that ability. Dre: Mm-hmm. I wanna take a trip to China again. I went like years and years and years ago, but I see nearly like enough of what I would wanted to see. Nia actually studied abroad there, so she spent like several months there. Like I think she spent like three or four months there, ⁓ which is a good enough time. And traveled around so she got a chance to see a lot. but I wanna go back, man. I it it was a very fascinating place. This very interesting, very different from the US. Rodney: ⁓ wow. ⁓ jeez. ⁓ jeez. Dre: which is just kind of refreshing to kinda be in. So yeah, I'd definitely add that back to my my bucket list of places to go explore. Rodney: Yeah, it's on my list too. It's on my list too. working on getting my I lost my passport, so I'm working on getting my my a new one. And I should be getting one soon. But China's on my list too because I I respect them too much at this point. I I they now are dominating everywhere. It's almost as if they're the unnamed winners of the current time we live in. And we just don't want to say it. We just don't want to say it. Dre: ⁓ man. Yeah. Yeah. Rodney: And they don't care if if we if nobody says it. They'll take the power. They'll they'll take the power. It's like, ⁓ okay, you underestimated it, that's okay, that's cool. Dre: No, no. Yeah, it's like while the US is like sits back and debate change, China just like we we wanna see about tomorrow. Like immediately. Like we just wanna see the change. We don't there's no conversation about it. We just need to do it. I mean and there's counters to that, you know, there there's downsides to that. There's there's ups and downs. But in these times where there's a lot of advancement and there's a lot of productivity happening, speed is important. Just like in a startup, you know what I'm saying? Like Rodney: Yes. Right. Right. Speed is everything right now. Dre: speed isn't quick being able to move quick, be nimble, and and decisive and get things done is important right now. So I'm hopeful that Trump has the right people around him who are telling him the right things that are needed to be done so that the US doesn't fall behind. And then whoever the next president is, because Trump won't be there forever. We know his term is eventually gonna end, whoever the next president is, takes China serious. at every level, and really commits what's necessary for the US to continue to be a a serious contender. 'Cause right now it's not looking like we are, at least from China's perspective. Rodney: And all respect us, bro. I I I I think they allow TikTok. use our own low standards against us. That's how I see it. They they know our vulnerabilities, essentially. And and they use it against us. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. So yeah, so it's not even that they're like doing something so horribly unethical. Dre: ⁓ yeah. They studied us. They studied. They they they they studied us. They they understand the US. Rodney: They're just beating us at our own games. And they're just beating us at our their own games. And they probably kicked off this strategy decades ago. And just now showing it's momentum of it. It's just now being being I ⁓ maybe ⁓ it's not too late, but I I think we can get out of it because I think we are the type of com country where when we we may be in a complacent place. Dre: Yeah. Rodney: But we have the talent. And I think people look at that debt number and they get demotivated. It's like, we owe almost a hundred trillion. Why try? But nah, I I I I that I think we'll be able to get out of it. And I think it'll turn around. And I think that it it'll be much more than we can even imagine. But it's gonna require a big change in the culture everybody's not gonna quickly change but there are some people who are starting to act like winners and talk like winners. I think we're a part of that group. I think people who listen to this podcast are a part of that group and think I think it's gonna go in in a in a good direction. But yeah, you know that that's my main thing. I mean I could talk for like on China I can say a lot because Recently I've been thinking a lot more about China because speed is everything right now. And and is my even in my personal life, I'm seeing that speed is is putting me at a place where it's like, are are y'all even trying? I'm at like how people are like I'm just it don't seem like people are even trying. ⁓ Dre: Yeah, yeah. No, for real, for real, man. I don't know, man, we're gonna see. We're gonna see. We'll we'll see, man. if we look back, like we we had the same conversation on the last pie three years ago or two years ago and we were having conversations trying to predict the future. Shit has accelerated much faster than I think we all anticipated. And so given where we are now, I would expect that acceleration time to be even faster. So Rodney: ⁓ by yeah. Yeah, yeah, by far. Dre: Whatever whatever anybody is predicting is gonna happen, I don't even I mean, we'll find out soon. It won't take long for it to play out, whatever the end result looks like. Rodney: There's gonna be a before the before okay, this time by this time next year, there's gonna be a significant conflict between the US and China that is going to force our country to respond in a way that we did not anticipate. And it will be bigger than just some taxes or tariffs. That's that that'll be one of my predictions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dre: I can see that. I can see that. Okay. All right. Cool. We want to end it there or we want to do one more? Rodney: Yeah. Yeah, let's end it there. Let's end it there. Dre: Alright, this was a good one, man. We'll see y'all on the next one. Rodney: See ya.