Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Gerald Tritt Shares Secrets Behind Vera's Award-Winning Burgers | Restaurants & Franchises Series

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Gerald Tritt Shares Secrets Behind Vera's Award-Winning Burgers | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Codis Bode, and today's guest is Gerald
0:30
Tripp co-owner of Vera's Burger Shack, which started out as a
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beach concession in 1977 under the watchful eye of Vera and her
0:38
husband Frank. Vera prided herself on serving
0:41
the best possible food, and as she got older, they handed it
0:45
down to their granddaughters. Eventually, Gerald, who was a
0:48
family friend, and his partner Noah Cantor became involved.
0:51
They have maintained Vera's commitment to providing an
0:54
excellent customer experience that turns people into returning
0:57
customers by using only the best ingredients and making the
1:01
burgers fresh themselves. They have been voted Vancouver
1:05
Canada's Best Burger 15 years running.
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They have 10 locations and counting and are actively
1:11
engaged in franchising conversations.
1:14
Gerald also has a wide range of other interests including a
1:17
cigar brand, which we'll hear more about and is the President
1:21
of Jolt Health, a health and Wellness company, which is
1:24
currently engaged in identifying opportunities in the AI space in
1:28
regards to medical development. Now before we get into all that
1:31
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Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
2:01
co-owner of Vera's Burger Shack. Gerald, I appreciate you making
2:04
the time to Share your story today.
2:06
Thanks for having me, Anthony. Happy to be here.
2:08
So Gerald, tell us in your own words, what is the customer
2:11
experience like at Farrah's? It's a warm and friendly
2:16
experience. I think we're not, we're not the
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type of company that gets out there and, you know, flashy,
2:22
screaming, yelling, a lot of hoopla.
2:25
We provide an experience that's friendly, inviting, and most
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importantly, quality. That's terrific.
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Now to win best burger once is impressive.
2:37
To win it 15 years and counting is kind of absurd.
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What are you guys putting into those things?
2:45
Well, good question. We have.
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We've been making the burgers by hand in store every day since we
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started. That for us is a non starter in
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terms of having somebody else produce our products for us.
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We also built a proprietary spice mix that we put into every
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burger. The difference in our burger as
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well is we charbroil them, we don't griddle them.
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They're not smash burgers. They're your sort of thick
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steakhouse style burgers and I think that people appreciate
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that every burger's over 6 oz. We don't skimp on the
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ingredients, we don't skimp on the quality.
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We make sure we only use top tier ingredients.
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And I think for that, people respect it and people respect
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the fact that we we care greatly about the burger.
3:29
So the cooking process, it's on a traditional like open flame
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grill, is that what you were? Describing, Yeah.
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And six oz. That's a pretty good sized
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burger. Yeah, it's, you know, it, it's
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funny. I'm not a small guy.
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My partner's not a small guy. Vera and Frank weren't small
3:45
people. And it was one of those things
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where we're not going to make food that we're not going to
3:50
eat. And it's as simple as that.
3:52
And, you know, I, we didn't want these two and 1/2 ounce patties
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that were frozen that were made by somebody else.
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And it's funny, over the years, you know, every beef provider
4:03
within Western Canada has come to us and say, oh, we should
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make your patties. And, you know, my partner and I
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always laugh. We're like, why would we let
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somebody else make the one thing that you're coming for?
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You know, we don't make ice cream, We don't make ketchup.
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We buy those things. We make our patties.
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So you're buying fresh ground beef and molding it into the
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shapes and mixing all the spices in and doing it right there on
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site? Yeah.
4:29
And anything we can do to make that product even a little bit
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better, we do it. So what was the what was what
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was the opportunity that unfolded that allowed you to get
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involved with bears? Had you been in the restaurant
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space before? How?
4:44
How did this all come about? So I was in the restaurant
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business for a number of years across Canada and I owned a
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tapas bar here in Vancouver. And around 2000, there is the
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last single granddaughter that lived in Vancouver was getting
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married and going to be moving away and they had one year left
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on a contract on the beach concession.
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So I spoke to them and I took over the beach concession and I
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did it for a couple of reasons. In 2000, the burger landscape is
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very different than it is today. There was nobody doing a real
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sort of charbroiled and I'm not going to say gourmet burger, but
5:24
upmarket burger. And so I took the concession
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over with the thought of let me see what I let me see what this
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is all about. Let me see if there's legs to
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this, Let me see if there's something there.
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And so I ran it for the first season.
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It was great. It was successful season.
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It was good timing for myself because my wife and I were also
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expecting our first child who's not named Sierra.
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And so it was a good opportunity for me to sort of check out the
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lay of the land. Noah Cantor, who's my partner,
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had been friends with me for a number of years and played
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professional football up here in Canton, the CFL for the BC
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Lions. And he had always said if he is
6:07
an opportunity to maybe do something else, let me know.
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And so in 2001 a space became available and I took the
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opportunity to approach no one's ask him if he wanted to come in
6:20
on that location with an opportunity to if things went
6:24
well to buy into the company. So in 2001 we opened our first
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stand alone restaurant and 2002 Noel became my partner and we've
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been partners ever since. And so you guys are up to 10
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locations now, is that right? Yeah, we have 10 locations and
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we're just finished one in Calgary, AB.
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Is that the first one outside of the Vancouver area?
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Yeah, we had one in Calgary a few years ago in the stadium
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redevelopment area in Edmonton. It was a casino that licensed us
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and that casino pulled out, so we pulled out with them.
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OK. And so is it the burgers that is
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really what is getting people to come in the door.
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Is that what people are talking about?
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That's that's the hook. I think, well, I mean, obviously
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the hook is the burgers and we're here is Burger Shack.
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Obviously the hook is the burgers, but it's, it's
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everything, you know, like, you know, our fries are fresh cut,
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double fried. You know, our patties are fresh.
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We use potato buns. We don't, you know, we use
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Hellman's Mayo, we use, you know, Heinz ketchup, we use
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French's mustard. We, our, our burger experience
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isn't just the burger like it's everything that's sort of
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layered on. We use real cheddar cheese.
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We don't, you know, and, and we're not for everybody.
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There's, there's a market obviously, like, I mean, look at
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the other guys out there. They're using American cheese,
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smashing the burgers down as things you can get, and there's
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a huge market for that. Maybe maybe we're wrong, but
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this is the burger that I want to eat.
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This is the burger my partner wants to eat.
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And ultimately, this is the burger that I think that when
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people really want an exceptional burger experience,
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the one they're going to turn to.
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So where do you want to go ahead, Gerald?
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We we don't scrimp. We don't, we don't cut corners.
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I don't want to use. That's a line from Dave Thomas
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from Wendy's, which is why he made his burgers square.
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We don't cut corns. You know, it's a, it was a great
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line when I heard it. I'm like, that's a great line,
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but I can't make square burgers. But you know, it's for us, it's
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about, it's about being up to quality, not down to a price.
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Focus on quality, Yeah, usually don't go wrong there.
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So where do you want to take the concept from here, Gerald?
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What's the growth plan? You know for, for us, you know,
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we're BC based company. We've looked at the states in
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the past. If there's opportunities there,
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we'd certainly engage them. But for us our focus is Western
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Canada. You know get we've got one store
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opening in Calgary. We'd like to get a second and
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third one. We'd like to open up and expand
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throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and
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really create a Western Canadian footprint.
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I think that's, you know, our backyard, so to speak, and I
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think there's real opportunity there.
9:11
How many of the locations are corporate owned versus
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franchises? Now they're all franchised, OK,
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It was a it was a decision that we made during the tail end of
9:20
COVID. How, how did you guys sort of
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manage that through the COVID time?
9:27
We managed well because we didn't.
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We didn't wait for the fight to come to us.
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We brought the fight to it. And what I mean by that is as
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soon as, as soon as we sort of saw things happening with COVID
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that that we thought were going to be game changers, we adapted,
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We engaged the delivery services, all of them.
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We talked to our franchisees. We worked out some
9:50
accommodations with the franchisees before they got to
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that point where they were struggling at all.
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And because we were proactive about it, because we got ahead
9:59
of it, we managed it well, we managed to survive and thrive
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through it. So.
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And so are you actively searching for new franchisees?
10:11
Yes. Specifically in Western Canada.
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Listen, I Western Canada's are preferred space, but we'll take
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Veras anywhere and we're pretty sure that everyone will like
10:22
them anywhere, OK? So for people who might be
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listening now, they're considering different
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franchising opportunities. What is it about the Vera's
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concept that is particularly compelling?
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Well, I think that it's the fact that it's, it's a product
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everyone can stand behind. I think that's the most
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important thing. You know, one of the reasons I
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got into the business was the hospitality business period was
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because you can't, you can't fight a good plate of food.
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You can stand behind it. You can be proud of it, you can
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feel good about it. And there's a lot of businesses
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out there that are just you go through the motions that you
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know, you're if you own a dry cleaner, you're standing behind
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the quality of your cleaning, but there's you're a dry
11:09
cleaner, it's a good business, but you're not handing somebody
11:13
a folded shirt saying look at that shirt, isn't it?
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Doesn't that shirt look great? You know there's.
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No emotion behind that, huh? There's no emotion behind it.
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You know, if I I put a plate of food in front of you and I watch
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you take that first bite of a burger and you are just like,
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wow, that's great. That inspires me and that should
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inspire any franchise partner that we have because we're
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that's how we feel about it. That's how we feel about our
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franchise partners. That's how we feel about our
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food, our customers and that should trickle down, OK.
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I'm curious, you know, in the time that you've been involved
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with Vera's, obviously it's grown from a single, you know,
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beach concession stand to now 10 locations.
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What are some inner innovations that you've introduced to Vera's
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since getting involved? So a couple of things.
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So when we first got involved, we were up until we had three or
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four stores, we were hand forming our patties and then we
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got something called, it was called a Hollymatic and it was
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an automated burger machine with the big hopper up front.
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So we could mix all the meat put in the hopper and it would spit
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out all these burgers. Perfectly formed round pucks,
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beautiful roundabout 2007 eight. We sort of looked at them when
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they were sitting on the grill. My partner, I were like, you
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know, they look great. They're really tightly packed.
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They're these really like perfect per two perfect paddies.
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And so I said, you know what, I think we can do better here.
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And we, we built this plate basically we, we threw this
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$15,000 padding machine out the window basically and built these
13:00
$60.00 stainless steel plates with a handle on the top of
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them. And we made meatballs, big, big
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six ounce meatballs. And then we use those plates to
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form the patties. So every Patty looks a little
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different, isn't quite tap packed as tight.
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So, so the juice flows a little differently in them and they
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just, they felt more home stuff. So that was a big for us.
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I mean, it's silly now to think about it.
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But it almost looked too industrialized.
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Before looked too industrialized and people were taking that
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position like, oh, now that you're growing, you must be
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using frozen patties. And we had to sort of take a
13:39
half step back and say, no, we don't, we'll never do that.
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So it was sort of, you know, it's silly to think about now,
13:47
but it was just one of those things, you know, And then, I
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mean, going back to French fries, Oh my God, the amount of
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work we did in terms of figuring out our French fries and how to
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fry them right and get the right temperature, the right crisp,
14:00
the right feel inside, because we use fresh potatoes.
14:04
That was a work in progress. I mean, and we were, you know,
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our first fries coming out were terrible.
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We were hitting them with 12 different types of spice to try
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to cover up the fact they all tasted a little burnt.
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And it, it's when I think about all the things that we went
14:18
through to get to the quality of the product that the the average
14:22
consumer gets now. It is one of the reasons I get,
14:27
I get so worked up if I see it something where somebody says
14:31
the the fries weren't crispy or somebody says the burger was
14:35
greasy. You take that personal.
14:36
Like, I take it personally. I take it personally for a lot
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of reason. I take it personally because
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I'm, I'm first of all, I'm a proud guy.
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I want to do good work. But second of all, we we care
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more than anybody about that burger that you're about to eat.
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And when I when somebody speaks I'll of our product it it.
15:00
It's like bashing one of your. Kids, yeah, it hurts me to my
15:03
core so. You mentioned before that the
15:06
the fries are double fried. What does that mean?
15:09
Yeah. Like two different oils, two
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different. That means basically we we
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blanch them in hot oil so they get cooked and then we take them
15:19
out of the oil and we let them cool and then when you order
15:23
your fries, we fry them again. Oh, so they're like steaming
15:27
hot? Yeah.
15:29
So when you So what happens when they come out of when they come
15:31
out of being blanched, they're they're basically just about
15:34
cooked, but they're not crispy. OK.
15:39
And so you need to finish them off, yeah.
15:40
You finish them off and So what happens is when they come out
15:43
hot like that, with a little bit of oil on them, the steam
15:47
actually helps cook the inside of the fry.
15:50
So when you take those fries and you put them back in, that
15:54
second fry crispy outside and the inside is soft.
16:00
Now, I'm not a chef. I I never operated a restaurant
16:04
before. I I did work at a Wendy's once
16:06
as a teenager, but I've never heard of this idea of double
16:11
frying a potato. Was this an innovation that that
16:14
you guys came up with yourselves or how did?
16:17
You discover. This idea this this has been
16:19
around. A lot.
16:19
It's a it's been, it's been around for a long, long time.
16:23
Yeah. It's just there's, depending on
16:26
the potato that you're getting, the type of potato, if there's
16:29
too much sugar in the potato, it can get black very quickly.
16:34
So when you're doing the double fry, if it's the wrong potato,
16:38
it'll look burnt. It'll taste great, but it'll
16:40
look burnt. Have you ever been to Quebec?
16:44
I have not. Oh no.
16:45
I have Montreal. I've been there.
16:47
So Montreal, yeah. So the, the if you had French
16:50
fries there, you would have noticed they're darker.
16:52
The potatoes they use, they're higher sugar content.
16:54
Interesting. So when you when they fry them,
16:57
they get they get naturally darker.
17:00
Interesting. Yes, we learned a lot about
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potatoes when you're coming up with our fry.
17:06
And so where do your fry are your potatoes come from?
17:10
Our fries are Kennebec potatoes, OK from Canada.
17:13
And then during the growing season they the last bit of the
17:17
growing season gets shipped over from California.
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When the when they're turning over the growing season, Canabac
17:23
potatoes have one harvest. So they harvest them all at once
17:26
and then they go through the course of the year.
17:28
Got it. Talk to me about store openings.
17:31
You guys do anything fun or outrageous when you're opening a
17:34
new location, try to get some attention.
17:37
We don't really, I mean, we're not, again, we are not the type
17:41
of people that have the big cow standing out front handing out
17:45
burgers and stuff like that. We're we tend to, you know,
17:48
we'll do gift certificates, we'll do giveaways, we'll do
17:52
social media announcements. Our biggest thing is we, we give
17:57
away these things called Burger Box where we just go out and we
18:01
just hand them out and they're five or $10.00 for opportunity
18:04
for people to come in and try the product.
18:07
Our our general feeling is you come and try the product once,
18:11
you're going to come back and have it again.
18:14
Makes sense. Let's shift gears for a moment.
18:16
I'm curious to hear more about this cigar brand.
18:19
How did you get involved with that?
18:23
So Freud Cigars named after Sigmund Freud.
18:27
OK, I got involved in that about I've been friends with some guys
18:33
for, you know, 20 years now and they're public, they're heavily
18:39
invested in public markets here in Canada and it's a family
18:42
office. And about, you know, several
18:45
years back, we were, you know, having a a birthday party for
18:50
one of them and we're having cigars and everyone loved the
18:52
cigars and everyone want to let their merry way.
18:55
And then the senior partner of the company was in Greece and
19:00
having a cigar. And he's sitting there forcing
19:04
his hotel having a cigar and all these other guys are having
19:06
cigars. And he's like, this is a great
19:09
experience. And, you know, he sort of said,
19:14
well, you know, maybe I want my own cigar company.
19:19
And it was sort of born out of that.
19:21
And then it turned out he had a contact who was who had been in
19:24
the cigar industry, who was on the shelf.
19:26
And so he talked to them, talked to his primary partner, they
19:31
started the cigar company and then they brought me in to look
19:35
at building a, an alcohol side to the company.
19:40
And you know, sort of we, we successfully developed that.
19:46
That's on the shelf right now getting ready to launch, but.
19:49
What type of alcohol? It's going to be our first
19:52
release is going to be a bourbon and as as the cigar company
19:58
started ramping up, they asked me to get more involved in the
20:01
cigar company to the point where I'm I'm involved daily on the
20:05
cigar company side of things. And so tell me what is the
20:09
distribution like? What tell me more about the
20:11
brand? For people who know cigars, what
20:13
would be the differentiator here with your product?
20:16
So we so we created a brand. Freud Cigars.
20:20
The name of the brand came out of building a brand around
20:24
somebody who was a prolific cigar smoker.
20:26
And not a lot of people know this, but Sigmund Freud smoked
20:29
20 cigars a day. Oh my gosh, he he had a cigar
20:33
lit almost every day. And So what happened was we
20:39
built this company. We launched the first cigar
20:41
April 2021 called the Super Ego after one of Freud's concepts
20:47
and launched that in New York. And gradually the line has grown
20:53
where we've got four different cigars, nine different sizes.
20:59
And we started a secondary company called Carlos and Maria,
21:02
which has five different, two different cigars, 5 different
21:06
sizes. We've been rated in Cigar
21:09
Aficionado, We've been mentioned Cigar Aficionado 15 times.
21:13
We have they're all Dominican cigars right now.
21:17
And we have two fantastic blenders.
21:21
If, if any of your fans have heard of Davidoff Cigars, the
21:26
master blender for Daggar Cigars for over 30 years as a gentleman
21:29
by the name of Latio Diaz, he's blending for us now, one of his
21:35
understudies, Weber Ventura, and one of his blending partners,
21:39
William Ventura. So Weber Ventura is also
21:42
blending for us. So, you know, one of the reasons
21:46
why I got aligned with the cigar company is because the
21:48
philosophy of the cigar company is very similar to the
21:52
philosophy of Vera's. It's up to a quality.
21:57
You know, we've got great blenders doing great tobaccos,
22:01
doing interesting blends, and it's grown from there to the
22:05
point where we're 140 retailers across the US, some big, some
22:11
small, some well known, some not so well known.
22:14
We're in 15 different countries and growing daily.
22:18
I've been looking at your site here as you were explaining all
22:21
of that and the product is beautiful.
22:24
It's the packaging is. You're looking at the Sigmund.
22:29
I am, yeah. Yeah, the Sigmund, the Sigmund
22:33
packaging, the Sigmund box, that's a, that's a limited
22:36
edition cigar we launched on Sigmund Freud's birthday last
22:38
year. And it's it's a great, great
22:42
cigar. And when you talk about the the
22:45
blenders and the blending that is taking place, these are
22:49
different varieties of tobaccos that have been.
22:52
Compared. Differently to talk a little bit
22:55
more about that. So one of the things that I over
22:58
the, you know, as I got more involved with the cigar in this
23:01
industry, I sort of, you know, did my homework, did my
23:03
research, did, did a small cigar sommeliers course so I could
23:07
learn and speak in an educated manner about the cigars.
23:11
And what you really learn is how many different styles of tobacco
23:16
leaf there is. What makes a good wrapper?
23:19
What makes a good binder? What makes a good filler?
23:22
Why cigars burn the way they do, why the cigars don't burn the
23:25
way they do. You know, there's our director
23:28
of international sales, Manny Diaz is a Latio's son, and he's
23:33
a walking encyclopedia himself about cigars.
23:36
He took a cigar apart for us, showed us each layer of the
23:38
cigar, why this one burned, why this one didn't burn.
23:42
It is a it, it is, you know, in cooking, they say cooking is
23:49
art, baking is science. Cigar making is both because
23:54
you, you have to understand why the tobaccos are going to be
23:58
layered the way they are to get the flavor profile that you're
24:00
going to get. But you also have to understand
24:04
the science of why you need to use this part of the tobacco
24:08
tree for a plant to, to, to use your wrapper, your binder, your
24:14
filler. And it is really an interesting
24:19
science when when you break it down.
24:21
So I'm not a cigar guy myself, but I have many friends who
24:25
really enjoy it. If I was looking for a gift for
24:29
somebody that, hey, this is something a little bit
24:31
different, a little bit special, Is it the the Sigmund here that
24:35
you would recommend? Well, the Sigmund, the Agapi, if
24:39
you can find it, it's that's just about finished in terms of
24:43
its exclusivity. I would we don't have many boxes
24:47
that left. So when you find an Agapi, you
24:49
should definitely OK, grab one and the Sigmund, you know, the
24:54
alter egos are really interesting cigar for us because
24:57
we used some very interesting tobaccos in that we used a
25:01
tobacco called Pelladoro, a hair gold.
25:03
It's based on the Peruvian strain of a very hard to get
25:06
tobacco. So it's got a very different
25:08
flavor profile that that to me is like if if you put a gun to
25:13
my head and say, you know, who's your favorite?
25:16
Probably the alter ego Rubusto because it's got the Mexican San
25:20
Andreas wrapper, which is a little oily, a little darker.
25:23
It's got the Pelladoro tobacco inside.
25:26
I just that I tend to gravitate towards that the Sigmund's an
25:31
excellent cigar, but the Sigmund's a commitment because
25:33
it's a double Corona. So it's a longer Vitolo, so that
25:36
you definitely have to be committed to sitting there for
25:40
an hour, an hour and a half. But you know, the, the, the
25:43
picture that I always paint for people with the cigars is, you
25:47
know, you come home from work, had a stressful day, You'll pour
25:51
yourself a cocktail, you'll pour yourself another.
25:55
You know, after an hour and a half, two hours, you might have
25:57
had four or five cocktails and you're sort of wound down to the
26:01
evening. You have a cigar, you pour
26:05
yourself a drink, You go sit on your back patio.
26:09
You'll sit there for an hour, you'll have one, maybe 2 drinks,
26:12
have the cigar. And you are way more relaxed and
26:18
feeling way better than if you're having four or five
26:20
drinks. It's it's.
26:23
You moderate a little bit more on the alcohol side and then the
26:26
the effects from the tobacco just kind of.
26:28
A It's a natural moderation because you're because you've
26:31
got something else to sort of take your attention away.
26:35
And I'm, I'm telling you, sitting, sitting on your back
26:39
porch, having a cigar and a drink and watching the sun go
26:42
down, Nothing, nothing relaxes you more.
26:47
And that's, of course, shortly after you've just had a nice
26:49
Vera's burger to fill up your belly for the.
26:52
Night. Well, that you have that for
26:53
lunch to get you through the rest of the day.
26:55
I like it. So people can find these cigars,
26:57
can they buy directly from your website or they only through the
27:00
the retail distribution that you've got?
27:02
Retail distribution, but there are there are online retailers
27:05
as well that have them to carry them.
27:08
I think Cigars Direct carries them online.
27:11
So they're they're a good contact.
27:13
But locally, I mean, I know that there's retailers in Columbus
27:17
that carry them. I know that there's retailers
27:18
across, I think we're in 40 odd States and we'll be launching a
27:24
new cigar in early 2025. News about that one is going to
27:28
be coming out in the coming weeks.
27:31
And I think that's going to be a real interesting collaboration
27:34
that we're doing with with a, with a very well known person.
27:37
OK. And people can they can make
27:40
sure they can find out more about it by is there some place
27:44
on your website that they can sign up for information?
27:47
There you can go to our website. You can go, yeah, the best thing
27:51
to do is follow us on social media, OK?
27:52
Instagram for Cigarco. Great.
27:55
And what's the growth plan for this?
27:57
Is it just to continue sort of some of these interesting
28:00
collaborations like you just mentioned, the one coming out in
28:02
2025, Are there more retail outlets coming?
28:06
We'll add, we'll add retail stores, we'll we'll add more
28:10
countries for distribution, We'll add more cigar lines as we
28:15
grow. We're moving slowly moving to
28:18
Europe as well. And so I think that for us, it's
28:22
about continuing to do interesting, continue to keep
28:26
our core blends in stock and ready to go for the consumers
28:30
that use those and enjoy those as they're sort of daily and
28:33
weekly smokes and continue to provide interesting blends for
28:40
limited editions and make those, you know, really inspired.
28:45
All right. I want to shift gears again and
28:48
this time I want to hear more about Jolt Health.
28:53
As we described it in the intro, this is a health and Wellness
28:55
company currently engaged in identifying opportunities in the
29:00
AI space in regards to medical development.
29:02
What does that mean? So, you know, one of the things
29:06
that's happening right now in, in the world, obviously
29:10
everybody hears the term AI and you know, then you're going to
29:15
start hearing about AGI, which is now starting to, you know,
29:19
hit mainstream as a concept. What's so special about AI isn't
29:26
the, it's not how quickly AI is developing.
29:32
It's it's how many different things are being developed
29:35
through AI. And you know, there's, there's
29:38
opportunities with the right presets, the right concepts put
29:45
into the AI mind, so to speak, and having antagonistic entities
29:53
that push back against each other.
29:55
AI really does spin the wheel very quickly in terms of
29:59
development in all segments. And we're seeing that now within
30:05
medicine where where you're starting to see certain
30:08
vaccines, certain medicines being developed almost through
30:14
the concept of giving the parameters to the writing the
30:18
parameters in code and then allowing an AI module to develop
30:26
an idea. Because it doesn't, it doesn't
30:28
have any preconceived notion of what should or shouldn't work.
30:34
If you just push everything into the, you know, if you, if you
30:39
just push all of the information into it and let it run, it will
30:43
sometimes surprise you. And it did.
30:45
There's, there is, I can't remember the name of it.
30:49
Halison was the first AI generated antibody and it was
30:57
strictly done by AI with the concepts being put into the
31:00
system and allowing the computer to do its work.
31:05
And the way it works is it is, you know, it's, it's almost in
31:10
simplified forms. It is having a computer that
31:14
says yes to everything and then having a counter computer saying
31:17
no to everything. And they sort of push back
31:20
against each other and fight. And in that process and that
31:26
antagonist across that process, it learns really quickly.
31:30
And they, that's how they did it with chess.
31:33
That's how they've done it with checkers.
31:35
And they've, it turns out you can apply that theory to just
31:39
about anything where it's where it's learned machine learning.
31:44
And for medical, we're now seeing it, we're seeing it live
31:50
and in person. And so for Jolt Health, we've,
31:54
you know, we've had several things involved in the company
31:57
over years. And we just sort of looked at it
31:59
and said, this is the direction that it needs to be.
32:03
This is where medicine is going. This is where medical
32:05
development is going. This is what the next 10 years
32:08
is going to be and we've identified some core assets that
32:15
we think that would be good and we've identified some key people
32:18
that we think would be outstanding in terms of helping
32:21
us on that journey. And So what does this look like?
32:24
What is there an ultimate product that's on the horizon?
32:29
The well the interesting thing about AI is we've, you know,
32:33
once we've identified and finalized any agreements with
32:38
with an acquisition partner will determine that as we go down the
32:42
road. And so paint a little bit more
32:46
of a picture for me, help me understand where the company is
32:49
now, where you want to take it. What what is it doing in the
32:52
moment? That's it's.
32:53
It's a nascent company right now.
32:55
It's a shell and so. Early days, early days, but you
32:58
guys have got big plans, yeah. Yeah.
33:01
And what we've done is, you know, there are several things
33:04
that we've looked at, several things that we look to put into
33:06
the company. And then for various reasons,
33:09
we've decided that we really need to focus on the AI side of
33:12
things. We really need to focus on the
33:14
medical side of things. And that's what we've decided to
33:16
do. So if you and I talk again and
33:18
say be 1218 months, what would you hope to have be the
33:24
announcement at that point? I would hope to have the
33:28
announcement be that we're heavily involved in the
33:31
development of something in the medical field that is AI driven,
33:36
OK. All right, Well, we'll check
33:38
back in with you later to see how this is evolving.
33:41
So shifting gears again, you know, in this show we always
33:45
like to spend at least a few minutes kind of delving into a
33:48
personal or a professional challenge that you've overcome
33:52
at some point and lessons that you learned.
33:54
On the other side of that is somebody who's been involved in
33:57
a wide range of businesses over the years.
33:59
I'm sure that you've probably got a long list of things that
34:04
bumpy roads that you've travelled.
34:05
Can you think about one particular example of a
34:08
challenge, either personally or professionally, that you've
34:10
overcome and some things that you learn going through that
34:13
experience? I think that the biggest
34:16
challenge that in everyone's day-to-day life, including my
34:21
own, is that, you know, when there's, if there's an issue,
34:24
you have to deal with it. And I think far too often it's
34:29
pushed to the back burner, It's moved to the side.
34:33
Other things come up and, you know, small issues become a big
34:38
issues if you don't deal with them.
34:40
And for us, you know, and I'm, I'm of, I've, I've done it to
34:46
myself. I've seen other people do it
34:48
themselves, where, where if you don't handle the issues, the
34:51
issues handle you. And I think that's the biggest
34:55
take away from anything is that if there's a problem, you deal
34:58
with it and you move on and you be honest about it and you learn
35:03
from the mistakes. I don't think, you know, I, I
35:06
always joke with some of the people I work with that when I'm
35:11
perfect, everyone has to worry that it's not going to happen
35:13
for a while. So I think everyone's safe.
35:15
Everyone can relax. Yeah, everyone can relax just
35:18
for another week, so. Gerald, as business leaders,
35:23
obviously we always have an eye on EBITDA, which is just a fancy
35:27
term for profits, right? I'm curious in in the different
35:31
roles that you've been in to hear about maybe something
35:34
interesting or creative that you've tried either as a way to
35:38
lower costs or increase sales that might be fun to talk about.
35:43
Well, I think for in terms of, in terms of beers, one of the
35:46
biggest things that we did very early on was we started
35:50
procuring our own meat. And by buying, by making deals
35:56
with the meat providers and cutting out the, the, the meat
36:03
wholesalers, we were able to lock in more consistent pricing
36:10
and we've been able to protect our pricing in terms of the
36:14
margins, I think a lot better than others.
36:18
For us that was an important piece because it really did help
36:24
us, you know, through, you know, we meat is a commodity and it
36:29
helps us maintain a consistent price.
36:32
You know, obviously we can't, we can't combat inflation, but we
36:37
can at least offset it somewhat. And so, you know, when we when
36:41
we buy our meat, we buy it in bulk, we buy, you know, trailers
36:45
at a time. And for us, it enables us to
36:48
maintain a price point for our meat and it doesn't fluctuate
36:51
quite as much as others would. What's something you wish you
36:55
could teach a younger version of yourself, Gerald?
37:05
You have to do your assessments faster, make your decisions
37:09
faster and and don't allow things to linger.
37:16
I think the biggest, I think the biggest thing that people
37:18
mistakes people make, biggest mistake people make now is
37:22
again, it goes back to my previous comment.
37:25
I think you push, you tend to push things to the side and say,
37:28
I'll deal with that later. And a lot of times that later is
37:33
more painful. Rip the Band-Aid off now.
37:39
So to speak, Yeah. You know, Gerald, in a
37:43
competitive job market, recruiting and retaining good
37:46
employees can be really challenging.
37:48
I don't know if you are experiencing the same kind of
37:51
Labor shortages in Canada that we are in the States, but I'm
37:56
curious to hear about something maybe that you've tried and
38:00
found success with to help both recruit and retain good staff.
38:06
Well, I, I think that generally speaking, you know, at this
38:09
point, because we don't own the any stores where everything is
38:14
franchised, it's, it's no longer sort of part of my day-to-day
38:20
purview. However, when we did have
38:23
stores, one of the things that we always did was made sure that
38:26
if we identified a good employee, they weren't at
38:29
minimum wage for very long. We just we.
38:33
We. Proactively bump them.
38:35
Up you don't wait. And that's again, you know the
38:39
the analogy of ripping the Band-Aid off.
38:41
If you're waiting for somebody to come to you and ask for a
38:44
raise, it's going to be more painful.
38:47
If you give them a small bump before they think they've earned
38:50
it, they're twice as happy with you because that you're you're
38:55
you've now. You've now given them a bonus
38:58
instead of not met an expectation.
39:02
That's a good way to frame. It, I think that that's, that's
39:05
important because you know, if, if I make $10.00 an hour and I
39:09
come to you and ask for a raise, I want 12.
39:11
I'm not coming to you to get a raise from 10:00 to 10:50.
39:15
But if you've identified me and you and I'm earning $10.00 an
39:18
hour and I've been working for a month and you say, hey, you know
39:20
what, you're doing a really good job, Gerald.
39:22
There's 1075. You're super happy.
39:28
And you know, I use, I use those numbers, but meanwhile, I mean
39:32
the average, the, the average wage, the minimum wage in Canada
39:35
is around the, in BC is around $17.00 an hour.
39:39
So which, which is it's great because it does allow it, it
39:45
does allow people a living wage. And that's important.
39:48
But it's also tough because as a small business, you can only
39:53
afford that for so many people. And if your business isn't
39:56
thriving, that that means you have to cut somewhere and that
40:01
cut is in quality, you know, you can't afford.
40:05
I, I had this conversation with my daughter who's in law school.
40:09
And you know, she was, we were arguing about a living wage.
40:11
And I said living wage is important, But if you can only
40:16
afford two people, so you can't give the customer service that
40:20
you need to give, that means you either have to raise your price,
40:25
which might not be competitive. Or you have to have owner
40:29
operators or you perish. Now if the wage is $12.00 an
40:38
hour, you might be able to afford four people.
40:43
So now your business is thriving Your your price points are fair
40:49
and you've employed two more people.
40:51
What's better? It's a, it's, it's a tough nut
40:55
to crack because here in Vancouver, I, I don't know
41:00
whether you know anything about Vancouver, but it is not an
41:03
inexpensive place to live. And you know, $17.00 an hour
41:07
will barely get you over the finish line.
41:12
So it's a tough environment. That all of that being said,
41:15
we've we've never had somebody on minimum wage for more than a
41:19
month. OK if.
41:20
They're good. If they're good, they've been
41:22
given a. Raise if they prove themselves,
41:23
you're holding on to them. You want to give them that bump
41:25
right away. Yeah, yeah.
41:28
Gerald, what's a fun fact most people would know about you A.
41:32
Fun fact, most people wouldn't know about me.
41:35
Oh my gosh, I I think I'm a pretty open book.
41:43
Yeah, everybody. Everybody knows your skeletons.
41:47
I think most people, I think most people would say he talks
41:49
too much. Quite the gabber you are, huh?
41:55
Most You know what a fun fact most people would wouldn't know
41:59
about me? I can be far more disciplined
42:02
than people give me credit for being.
42:04
OK, you come across as a fun loving sort of a shoot from the
42:07
hip kind of a guy, but. Yeah, yeah.
42:10
Underneath the layers, there's a there's a strong discipline.
42:13
Good work. Yeah, right.
42:15
Right now I'm in the middle of something called 75 Hard because
42:18
somebody challenged me to do it. And what is that?
42:22
Work out twice a day. Stick to a diet.
42:25
No cheat days. No drinking any alcohol.
42:27
Read 10 pages of nonfiction. Drink a gallon of water for 75
42:32
straight days. How many days into it are you?
42:35
Day 63 now. Oh, you're almost through it.
42:38
Yeah. How do you feel?
42:42
You know what I feel? I feel probably the same as I
42:44
did beforehand, which is shocking to most of my friends
42:47
other than the fact that I've lost some weight so.
42:49
OK. Well, that's got to be helping
42:51
you out in in some ways, yeah. My wife didn't believe I I'd be
42:55
able to stop drinking just like that.
42:57
So now do you still enjoy the cigars?
42:59
Is that on the allowed? List that's not that's not,
43:02
that's not on the off list, so. Good that that's got to help,
43:07
Gerald. Any specific mentors, books, or
43:11
learning experiences that have been helpful in your personal or
43:14
professional career? I, I wouldn't say there's any
43:20
specific mentors or books. What I've always tried to do is
43:29
I, I read a lot. I read every day.
43:32
I read the news, not just one source, several different
43:35
sources every day. I listen to audio books.
43:39
I read regular books. I'm pretty voracious about that
43:43
on a day-to-day basis. And I don't, I try not to lock
43:51
myself into any given concept. I'm open to any discourse about
43:57
anything. And if somebody has a a better
44:03
point of view or can show me a better concept, I'm open to it.
44:10
I don't, I don't particularly like I'm, I'm idea agnostic.
44:16
I have opinions and my opinions are formed, I, I believe based
44:23
on 360 degree learning. So like, I can't, you know, I, I
44:29
firmly believe in the concept of, you know, walking somebody
44:33
else's shoes before you form an opinion of them.
44:36
I firmly believe in, you know, how you treat people that can't
44:41
do anything for you is how you treat everyone.
44:46
And you know, I firmly believe in that.
44:48
You never stop learning. And that's those, those are sort
44:53
of the things that I try to instill in my kids, I try to
44:57
instill in my business. I'm not perfect.
45:00
I still learn every day. I expect if we had this
45:04
conversation in six months, a year, two years, five years, I
45:08
would probably think differently about some things because I
45:12
think that you, you can't, you can't.
45:16
If you don't evolve, then you become extinct.
45:21
I think this is an important point and I think it's something
45:24
that most people would like to believe about themselves, but is
45:29
really challenging in practice. This idea of being open to
45:33
having your mind changed. I mean, it's pretty rare to go
45:36
into a convert in my experience. It's pretty rare to go into a
45:39
conversation with somebody, especially about something maybe
45:42
political or you know, something that's really divisive and have
45:46
them come in with this viewpoint, but then hear
45:50
somebody else's viewpoint. You're like, oh, that's
45:52
interesting, right? Is, is there something that sort
45:55
of helped you sort of develop that mindset and being open to
46:00
having your mind changed? Coming from a broken home.
46:05
OK. I think, you know, I, I think
46:09
it's one of those things where you sort of as, as I, you know,
46:13
nobody is perfect in this world. And I think that the, you know,
46:16
the, the moment, the moment that you think you're 100% right is
46:21
the moment that you fail. And I think that there's, you
46:26
know, there's multiple truths to every story.
46:29
There's multiple stories to every truth.
46:32
And I think it's critical that people, you know, I, I tell my
46:38
kids, I have three kids and I tell them all the time.
46:41
What's getting lost in this, in this world that we live in
46:44
currently is an inability for discourse.
46:49
It's an inability to have a conversation where I don't agree
46:53
with you, but I respect your opinion and and.
46:58
And can allow you to have it. Yeah.
47:01
I, I, I, I don't, I don't judge you for your opinions.
47:05
I judge you as a person. You're a good person.
47:08
I have tons of time for you. You're interesting, you're
47:10
engaging, you're finding I have tons of time for you.
47:13
If you're going to stand there and tell me there's only one way
47:16
to be and there's only one way to act and and that is
47:21
infallible, then I don't have a lot of time for you because
47:24
you're not a person that's going to ever think about things in
47:28
sort of a other than in a linear fashion.
47:32
And that's not how life works. Amen to that.
47:36
I'm curious it you said what allowed you to sort of develop
47:40
this mindset was coming from a broken home.
47:42
Was this sort of like an environment where was like mom
47:45
had one story, dad had another story.
47:47
I had to learn to kind of be able to hold both of those maybe
47:51
opposing stories in in my head at the same time.
47:55
I, I, here's, here's what I'm going to say is, you know, I
47:59
sort of, I, I half joke about that, but one of the things that
48:04
it allowed me to do is become an observer.
48:08
And, you know, I, I like to be engaged in the story and I like
48:14
to have fun. I like to have a good time, but
48:16
I equally like to stand at the back of a room and just watch.
48:21
And I think that's because sometimes if, if you, you know,
48:26
broken homes aren't always nice and easy.
48:27
Sometimes they're volatile relationships and sometimes you
48:31
just need to stand in a corner and watch.
48:35
And I think that's important. I think we all, we all have
48:41
this, we all have this idea of getting involved.
48:47
And sometimes people get involved when they shouldn't.
48:50
I've I've been, I've done that and I brought my wife in here.
48:54
She thought I did it yesterday like it's we all.
48:58
But sometimes you just want you need to stand back and just
49:00
watch. You know, it's something else
49:04
you said that really resonates with me is this idea that we
49:07
should always be learning. And I don't know how old your
49:10
kids are. I've got two boys who are 8 and
49:13
9, and that's something I regularly tried to impress upon
49:17
them. So I think they have this sense
49:18
of, you know, once they graduate high school, once they graduate
49:21
college, what's once they get to be a grown up, you know, they'll
49:24
be done learning. They won't have to go to school
49:26
anymore. They'll know everything.
49:29
And that's, you know, that's something that I, I really try
49:31
to impress upon them. I'm like, hey, you know, I'm 50
49:34
years old and I said, if I'm doing it right, every day I wake
49:38
up, I am learning something new. Like you never stop because when
49:42
you do I, you know, I think you, you know, you collect Moss, you,
49:46
you grow mold. You, you know, and, and you do a
49:49
quick decline. And so is, I'm curious as a
49:54
father, how, how old are your kids and, and how how have you
49:57
been able to impress those lessons upon them?
50:01
So I've got a 23 year old, a 21 year old and a 19 year old.
50:05
And how I've been able to impress that upon them is going
50:10
through the frustrating act of having arguments with them.
50:14
And it's, you know, I'm, I'm a believer.
50:20
I am a strong believer in discourse and having the
50:24
arguments and having the discussions and, and getting,
50:30
you know, as I say to my wife, our kids need to be independent
50:34
thinkers. I said the problem with
50:36
independent thinkers is they have their own opinions and
50:41
those don't necessarily align with us.
50:43
And that to me, but you know, it's, it's somebody posited the
50:48
question to me, if you drop dead tomorrow, what do you think your
50:52
legacy would be? And I said, I think that if my
50:55
legacy would be, I've got three kids, it'll be just fine.
50:59
They're going to be, they might be sad that I'm gone.
51:02
They might be upset about it, but they'll be just fine.
51:06
They form their own opinions. We've allowed them to fail.
51:09
We've allowed them to succeed. They've done it on their own
51:12
accord, their own merits. We haven't helicoptered them.
51:17
We've seen them get upset about things.
51:19
We've seen them be happy with things.
51:21
But most importantly, we've seen them drive their buses.
51:26
They're, you know, I have a niece that was got married very
51:30
young and I, I had a difference of opinion of whether she should
51:34
get married that young. I just said, look, at the end of
51:37
the day, you're going to write your own story.
51:40
And I think that's the most important thing.
51:42
Everybody needs to write their own story.
51:45
Is it a good story or bad story? Well, it's still being written.
51:48
You can change your story today. That's that's the way it is.
51:53
That's the way life is. Your story isn't over until you
51:56
close your eyes for the final time.
51:58
Up until that day, you can change your story every day.
52:02
It's dependent on you. I like that a lot.
52:05
Gerald, I've just got one more question for you, but before I
52:08
ask it, I want to do 2 things. First of all, if you're
52:11
listening and you like today's content, please hit the
52:13
subscribe, like or share button on your favorite podcast app.
52:17
Gerald, I also want to let people know the best way to get
52:20
in touch with you. We've already mentioned Freud
52:23
cigars, Fair Burgers. Somebody wants to reach out to
52:26
you and and Jolt Health, but somebody wants to reach out to
52:29
you directly. What's the best way for them to
52:31
get in touch with you? E-mail me at
52:35
geraldtrittgmail.com. So it's Gerald.
52:38
Gerald Tritt. TRITT.
52:42
Yeah, at Gmail dot. Com@gmail.com Great.
52:45
OK. So last question for you and we
52:47
can focus on one of the three businesses or all three of them
52:51
as as you think about answering this question.
52:53
But I'm curious, how do you see the industry that you're
52:58
involved in evolving over the next five years?
53:02
What are some of the big changes that you think are coming in
53:04
those spaces? So I think in the hospitality
53:10
space, I think the big, the big thing is going to be, I think
53:16
the delivery apps will continue to grow.
53:19
I think you're going to see some pushback on companies may be
53:22
doing their own deliveries and and sort of cycling back to the
53:25
way it used to be where, you know, pizza and Chinese
53:28
restaurants used to do their own deliveries.
53:31
Because I think that the amount of of money that the delivery
53:35
apps take off of the restaurants is significant.
53:38
And as margins get tighter, that becomes tougher to do.
53:42
So I think from from that perspective, I also think you're
53:45
going to see more varied influences.
53:49
You know, 2535 years ago, 40 years ago in the restaurant
53:54
industry, the concept of fusion cuisine became the hot spot.
53:59
I think that there is going to be more of that in terms of the
54:05
how food is prepared, how they have cooking techniques.
54:08
So I think in the restaurant business, you're going to see
54:10
some pretty wild stuff over the next 5 to 10 years.
54:13
I don't think anything is off the table anymore in terms of
54:17
cigars. I think the legislation is the
54:21
toughest part because people view cigars the the same they
54:28
they lump cigars in with tobacco and it is tobacco in the sense
54:34
of the word. But nobody is smoking, you know,
54:38
25 cigars in a day. Not like it's somebody who's got
54:42
a pack of cigarettes. Habit.
54:44
Plus the fact that you're not inhaling cigars.
54:47
Cigars are more of an experiential thing.
54:50
They're not as highly, in my opinion, they're not as highly
54:53
addictive. If somebody said to me tomorrow,
54:56
you can't smoke cigars anymore, I'd be fine with it.
55:00
I, I wouldn't like it because I enjoy a cigar, But I wouldn't
55:05
say, Oh my God, how can I live without cigars?
55:08
I'd have a tougher time giving up coffee than I would cigars.
55:11
The, you know, and, and so for the cigar industry, I think that
55:17
the legislation stuff is tough. I really enjoy, you know, I go
55:21
to the states, you know, I go to Las Vegas, I go to a cigar
55:26
lounge in Las Vegas. I enjoy sitting there having a
55:29
drink, having a cigar, great environment.
55:34
That's a that's a, that's a good night.
55:37
In Canada, you can't do that. In some states, you can't do
55:40
that. It becomes, you know, you're, if
55:44
I want to have a cigar here in Vancouver, I either have to be
55:48
in my backyard or I have to be 10 meters from the front door of
55:55
any building. There are no cigar lounges.
55:59
They're not allowed. And you know they have they here
56:03
in Canada we have brown paper, like plain paper regulations.
56:07
So every cigar has is over wrapped with a brown pack like
56:10
brown paper package in a in a cigar store where no miners are
56:16
allowed. What's the point of the
56:19
packaging? It's just the disguise.
56:20
What's in there? Because they, they, they
56:22
basically want to make it, they, they, they don't want to sell,
56:26
they don't want you to be able to use the, the Sigmund box
56:31
design as a selling feature for tobacco.
56:35
So you're sort of looking at it. It's silly because a cigar store
56:39
itself, no miners are allowed in.
56:44
So when people are walking in looking for a brand, they're
56:48
looking for their brand. They're looking for the cigars
56:50
that I like to smoke. They're not available or they
56:55
are available, but you have to go through the entire humidor to
56:57
find them. And because every cigar looks
57:01
the same, I find things like that you're, you, you create
57:05
layers of bureaucracy to make it more difficult for people to
57:12
just enjoy themselves. And again, a cigar is not a
57:17
cigarette. I can't stress that enough.
57:19
A cigar is not a vape, you know, I, I find.
57:23
So for me, that's the bureaucracy legislation, the,
57:28
the preconceived notions. Like there there's talk of of
57:33
banning cigars for anyone born after a certain date.
57:39
It's inconceivable of me for me to think that the government is
57:43
going to say, Gerald, because you were born in 2008.
57:49
You're never allowed to have a cigar, ever.
57:52
So your hope is that the momentum that some of this
57:56
legislation has going in One Direction may you're hoping is
58:00
that it sort of gets rolled back in another direction?
58:02
You know, I, I, I think that society in general is a, is a
58:08
pendulum swinger. We swing hard one way and then
58:11
we got to swing back hard the other way, and then we got to
58:13
find the middle somewhere as plain paper packaging.
58:16
Good. I could see an argument for it
58:20
banning cigar use for anybody. I mean, I, I would, you know,
58:26
with, at the risk of getting sued by Coca-Cola, I'd say that
58:29
soft drinks are probably worse for more of the population than
58:32
cigars are because more people have a soft drink addiction than
58:36
they do a cigar addiction. Interesting.
58:39
You're going to say that? What would happen if people say
58:42
if you're born after 2008, you're not allowed to have Coke,
58:46
you're not allowed to have Pepsi?
58:48
Yeah, that would make quite a bit of noise.
58:51
You know, if you look at if you, if you read the data, the amount
58:55
of the amount of cigar smokers it has has grown marginally in
59:02
the last 35 years. The amount of sugar consumed by
59:06
individuals has grown by a factor of 10.
59:10
Skyrocketing, yeah. What's worse for you?
59:14
Gerald, do you want to go ahead? Go ahead.
59:17
Sorry, I was just going to shift gears and see if you wanted to
59:19
take a stab at the same question for the the AI Health company.
59:24
Oh, AI. That's, that's, that's a tough
59:26
one. I mean, it is five years.
59:28
Might as well ask about five months, yeah?
59:30
It is the Wild West. You know, the, the, the
59:34
information cycle, the, the speed of computing is doubling
59:37
almost every 18 months. You know what we, it, it is, it
59:42
is literally the Wild West. I'm reading a book right now on
59:46
it and how fast AI is developing and on how fast things are
59:50
moving and how you know, the pre and and the good and the bad of
59:56
AI and you know, Microsoft had to shut down one of their AI
59:59
modules several years ago because.
1:00:04
It, it basically cycled into a rabbit hole that was racist and
1:00:12
started learning until the point where all it was spewing out was
1:00:18
racist information. And they, they, it, it, it was
1:00:22
such a nascent industry at that time that they ended up shutting
1:00:25
the module down. That was the solution.
1:00:28
Like we just have to shutter it because it we can't, it can't
1:00:31
unlearn what it's learned. I found like the AI is going to
1:00:39
AI. We don't even realize in a
1:00:41
day-to-day operation how much AI is involved in our daily life.
1:00:47
If you do a Google search on anything business cards, all of
1:00:54
a sudden if you punch in something else like photographs
1:01:00
and then your list of things that Google comes up with, it'll
1:01:04
say business cards with photographs on.
1:01:07
Because it's taken your search of business cards and, and
1:01:12
through its AI algorithms, it is now saying, well, if you're now,
1:01:17
if you're looking for photos, but you were looking for
1:01:19
business cards, maybe you're looking for business cards with
1:01:21
photos on. AI is contingent on everything
1:01:26
in our life outweighs the the GPS app for travel that uses AI
1:01:31
to tell you where to go and how to go user input.
1:01:36
And then it uses the user input of there's a car accident over
1:01:40
here to tell you don't instead of going over here because
1:01:44
there's a car accident, which is a user input, that's a human
1:01:46
input. But now AI says your best route
1:01:50
to get to your destination is going this direction now.
1:01:54
Gerald, Crazy. Yeah, fascinating stuff.
1:01:58
I want to be the first one to thank you for a really
1:02:01
interesting interview. Appreciate you sharing your your
1:02:03
time and your story today. Anthony, I appreciate you taking
1:02:07
the opportunity to reach out and had a good time.
1:02:09
Yeah, folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired
1:02:12
Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:02:15
today.