Latest / The ReForge Podcast / The Case for the Gap Year (with Matt and Colin) | ReForge 009

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The Case for the Gap Year (with Matt and Colin) | ReForge 009 · The ReForge Podcast

• 0:00
  One of my big things is I think we send kids to school, make them commit to a degree before they know what they wanna do.
• 0:07
  My recommendation to a parent, if you've got kids, is have them take a gap year or two.
• 0:14
  Love it.
• 0:14
  And make them get a job.
• 0:16
  This isn't, you know, go be an Instagram influencer or whatever, you know, it is.
• 0:21
  But they need to go get a job, r- different jobs.
• 0:24
  You know?
• 0:25
  It's not one job for two years.
• 0:26
  Or figure out what they like.
• 0:29
  And I say this, you know, to anyone, figure out what you don't like, you know, as much as anything.
• 0:40
  Welcome to the Reforge podcast.
• 0:42
  I'm Matthew Chang, and we're here to explore all things AI, automation, and the American worker, proving that the American re-industrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
• 0:53
  Thanks for joining us today.
• 0:55
  Let's get into the episode.
• 0:57
  Hello, everyone.
• 0:58
  Welcome to episode nine of the Reforge podcast.
• 1:03
  Today you are lucky to just have to deal with Matt and I.
• 1:07
  So we are going to get into it a bit.
• 1:10
  We got some great questions, uh, from our episode, uh, six, where we got into the education stuff.
• 1:17
  Um, so we're gonna kind of work through those and, and riff a little bit on, you know, maybe some of the answers to things we touched on, you know, ideas, kind of spitball it a bit.
• 1:26
  Um, but we're gonna keep going with kind of that, how do we get the workforce of the future in there?
• 1:30
  How do we address this education bit?
• 1:33
  So Matt, sound good to you?
• 1:35
  Sounds good.
• 1:36
  Yeah.
• 1:36
  I mean, people love talking about the workforce.
• 1:39
  I think there's anxiety in the economy right now, right?
• 1:42
  It, it probably feels with, you got AI, you got immigration, you got global conflict.
• 1:48
  Lot's changing, so nobody feels, in my opinion, nobody feels really secure in their career right now.
• 1:54
  And on top of that, you have headlines like Block laying off almost 50% of its workforce, right?
• 2:01
  And all the big companies are doing big lay- waves, layoffs.
• 2:05
  The, the one I read this morning, Disney's laying off 1,000 people in its, um, you know, basically movie division.
• 2:11
  Um- Yeah, and Snap as well.
• 2:13
  All right.
• 2:13
  Really?
• 2:14
  Yep.
• 2:15
  So, and, and then the m- the stock market is rewarding those companies, right?
• 2:20
  If you announce layoffs, then typically you're gonna get a stock bump,'cause people think that's, that's healthy.
• 2:26
  Um, so yeah, I think, I think we just need to take time and go through all these questions that people sent in after we talked about the workforce last time.
• 2:34
  Well, you know, I, I mean, I, I think that anxiety is probably the best word to frame it, you know?
• 2:42
  I- you mentioned last, you know, one of the earlier episodes, you know, you think four, five years ago, w- where ChatGPT was in the grand scheme of things.
• 2:52
  Like that, you know, w- in, in a very short amount of time, things change.
• 2:56
  So one of the questions that came in was,"I'm already halfway through my degree with two years of loans.
• 3:03
  Do I finish or pivot?" Hmm.
• 3:06
  Man, that is- How about need more information?
• 3:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 3:10
  I mean, that's one of those where any answer is gonna be a,"Well, it depends," you know?
• 3:16
  Yeah.
• 3:16
  It's, it's like a piece of string.
• 3:18
  It, it, how long is it?
• 3:19
  Well, it depends.
• 3:20
  Right.
• 3:20
  Um, I, I mean, my initial take on this is, uh, first off there's, you know, y- your mileage may vary.
• 3:29
  It's gonna come down to- Kind of the, the individual and obviously the major itself.
• 3:34
  Um, but, uh, you know, one of the things you hit on was the importance of internships.
• 3:40
  You know, the time between, you know, years.
• 3:44
  Uh, that's gonna be a huge factor in my mind of what this means, you know?
• 3:50
  I- if, if you have zero internships, you've finished two years, you've no internships, nothing's set up for this summer, uh, that's not necessarily a great sign for where you're gonna be in two more summers.
• 4:02
  Yeah.
• 4:03
  So, uh, you know, with that said, you've got the sunk cost piece of it.
• 4:07
  You got two years worth of loans in.
• 4:09
  Yeah.
• 4:09
  Here- What, what do you do?
• 4:10
  Here's what I'd say, just a simple decision matrix.
• 4:13
  This, you know, engineers can't help but make a decision matrix out of something.
• 4:16
  So number one- Lots of moving things number one, hop on your favorite AI tool and, and figure out what the opening salaries are in your desired job field.
• 4:26
  And then also do the same amount of work to figure out what your loan payment's gonna be if you take two more years of loans plus the two you got with the interest that's rolling, what's that gonna look like?
• 4:38
  So that's the concept of ROI, you know, is there a return on investment for the four years of education plus four years of loans?
• 4:46
  Does it make sense, right?
• 4:48
  And I would say if you can stop there if it doesn't pencil, and you can't see that you can build a budget off that starting salary.
• 4:55
  So you got the salary, you got the employer deductions.
• 4:59
  That's a hard thing for people to learn about.
• 5:00
  Your paycheck is gone- Yeah.
• 5:02
  before you see it.
• 5:02
  You got your, your tax- But, but I was told I was gonna make this much.
• 5:05
  Right.
• 5:05
  Yeah.
• 5:05
  What happened to my paycheck?
• 5:07
  Um, you got your tax, right?
• 5:10
  And then y- then you gotta have cost of living.
• 5:13
  Can you, you know, what's, what's the rent in the type of city you wanna live in?
• 5:16
  How much money do you need for food and exercise, entertainment?
• 5:19
  Do you need to have a travel budget?
• 5:21
  You know, work through all that and say,"Okay, do I still have the headroom to pay for the loan?" If it doesn't pencil, get out now, right?
• 5:29
  And what does get out now mean?
• 5:31
  In my opinion, it means does the university you have, uh, that where you're at, if you like the university,'cause it's also about the experience, right?
• 5:39
  You're paying for an experience.
• 5:41
  Yep.
• 5:41
  Uh, does it make sense to change majors?
• 5:44
  Maybe most of your credits transfer over to a different major with minimal rework, and you can- I mean, the first two years, that's, that's a lot of your, your kind of core, you know, foundational stuff that no matter what major, you're gonna be taking it.
• 5:57
  Yeah.
• 5:58
  And then the second thing I would say is if that university just doesn't pencil at all, let's say it's a private school with, with high tuition, um, I did that for grad school.
• 6:06
  I know you did that for undergrad.
• 6:09
  Then y- I think you gotta look at going to a lower cost institution if you wanna finish it out.
• 6:14
  And, and most of your credits will transfer You know, not all, but most will.
• 6:19
  And you just gotta really focus on that value for time and value for money.
• 6:23
  Um, if, uh, if you love what you do and you're just gonna...
• 6:28
  You're gonna be a, a therapist and you're not gonna be an AI therapist, then, you know, stay with it, right?
• 6:34
  Follow your passion.
• 6:36
  So for me, follow your passion is number three.
• 6:38
  Do the ROI, you check alternatives, and then let's talk about follow your passion.
• 6:43
  Yeah, I mean, I...
• 6:44
  The, the student loan piece of it is obviously such a big factor.
• 6:48
  You know, you're not in school, you've got it deferred.
• 6:51
  You know, it, it makes it seem, I don't wanna say fake, but it makes it a little bit easier.
• 6:57
  The other thing is, is there's a lot of accredited vocational programs out there, apprenticeship-type programs, that qualify for federal aid or whatever.
• 7:08
  And whether or not you need federal aid to go to them, being in those programs also keeps that, you know, kind of, that, that, um, what is it called?
• 7:17
  Defer, deferment period going.
• 7:20
  So i- if you make that decision that, hey, four-year degree at this point is not necessarily going to be...
• 7:27
  It's not gonna pencil out, it's not gonna make it, but hey, I wanna go be a s- you know, pipefitter.
• 7:34
  I wanna be, you know, a electrician.
• 7:36
  Oh, you're pushing him into manufacturing.
• 7:38
  I love it.
• 7:39
  Well, you, you, you go into those spaces, you know, a- and that gets you some of the, you know...
• 7:45
  That provides a path where, hey, you've got your deferral, you've got a clear path to making money afterwards.
• 7:51
  Yeah.
• 7:52
  And, you know, there's, sometimes there's on-the-job, you know, on, on...
• 7:56
  The training opportunities that come alongside it where you make, make a little money.
• 8:00
  It, it, it changes that equation a bit.
• 8:02
  But at the end of the day, I th- Let me say that, Scott.
• 8:05
  Yeah.
• 8:05
  Okay.
• 8:06
  First off, I graduated Georgia Tech with student loans, and I made that payment every month for, probably took me about eight years or so to pay off my undergrad.
• 8:15
  Every time I made that payment and I looked at it coming out of my budget, I was like,"Thank you." I had so much fun.
• 8:22
  You know, it was a great education, great experience, and it really put me on a, the path.
• 8:25
  So for me, student loans were a great value'cause it enabled me to go to out-of-state.
• 8:29
  I'm from North Carolina and I went to school in Georgia, so I paid the out-of-state tuition.
• 8:34
  Um, and I had a great time, right?
• 8:36
  And I, and it set me up.
• 8:37
  Uh, so student loans are not necessarily bad.
• 8:40
  I'm not, I don't think they're all bad.
• 8:42
  I think they're bad when they're given to people that aren't making informed decisions and get mired in debt that they'll never pay off, right?
• 8:47
  Yeah.
• 8:47
  I knew I was gonna pay mine off, and I was frugal.
• 8:50
  To your point on internships, I did, in addition to working part-time all the way through school, so I didn't have to take out room and board money in my student loans because I worked all the way through school part-time.
• 9:02
  And then I did five, uh, full-time internships through the Georgia Tech Co-Op program And you wanna talk about big money?
• 9:11
  Your boy over here made$14 an hour his senior year.
• 9:14
  Woo.
• 9:15
  Yeah, right?
• 9:16
  And, uh, so I, I was rich, man.
• 9:18
  It was like, you know, we're getting the...
• 9:20
  We're going to Wendy's, we're getting the french fries with the nacho cheese and the bacon on top, right?
• 9:25
  So, and we're getting- And we're gonna get a f- a large Frosty with it.
• 9:28
  Absolutely.
• 9:28
  We're making it rain.
• 9:30
  So that, so I think your point on internships is great'cause that's gonna inform you, do you really like your career field?
• 9:36
  Do I...
• 9:36
  Is this something I wanna stick with?
• 9:38
  And it's gonna also, it's give you a perspective of the economics inside those businesses or, or nonprofits or whatever, where you go to work.
• 9:46
  Um, since you brought up manufacturing, and I'm gonna do a, a couple screen shares for you today, I just wanna highlight, um, something.
• 9:58
  So let's grab...
• 9:59
  This is just the, uh, the quick result that comes up when, when you Google it.
• 10:06
  So, and it looks like here I'm on Bing.
• 10:08
  But the US manufacturing sector is facing a worker shortage of$1.9 million jobs, w- 1.9 million jobs by 2033.
• 10:20
  So these are the workforce entrants right now.
• 10:22
  That's who we're talking about, is...
• 10:23
  Or people that are looking for that kinda early career shift.
• 10:27
  Advanced manufacturing is setting up for basically a 2 million job shortage.
• 10:32
  What I can tell you is the, this data does not have the new manufacturing activity in it.
• 10:39
  Nope.
• 10:39
  So is that number- It's understated a million?
• 10:42
  Is it 8 million?
• 10:43
  I mean, th- this could be a really big number if we're reshoring as aggressively as you and I think we are.
• 10:49
  Um, so we can, we can partner with that, but if that's a high growth sector that's gonna have massive openings would be manufacturing.
• 10:57
  That's all positions.
• 10:58
  You know, factories- Yeah have the, the operators, they have the engineers, they have the administrators, they have salespeople.
• 11:04
  You know, it's a full suite business in most manufacturing operations.
• 11:10
  Well, and I, I think that that kind of, um, sets us up for another one of the questions.
• 11:14
  It's,"I'm a parent and I agree with you, but my kid is 15 and I don't know what to tell them anymore.
• 11:20
  What does good guidance look like now?" I mean, I think you hit on it, you know, a, a big piece of it is you gotta make sure kids are going into it eyes wide open.
• 11:29
  You know, helping them with the budget piece.
• 11:32
  What's that look like?
• 11:33
  I mean, d- I'm not gonna get into the just horrible financial literacy we have- Mm-hmm you know, in terms of p- preparing kids these days for it.
• 11:43
  But, you know, as a parent, that's something that you've gotta be prepared to do.
• 11:48
  You've gotta explain to them,"Here's what the number looks like," and yes, that sounds fine, but it's not that times four by the time- Well- you graduate I, I have a share for that.
• 11:59
  So do I.
• 11:59
  So this is...
• 12:00
  Yeah.
• 12:01
  If I'm a parent, this is what I'm talking, uh, to my kid about right now.
• 12:05
  I pulled this off X, uh, this poster, uh, Shirish, he was replying to Naval, probably most people on X know who Naval is.
• 12:14
  Five years ago, the best job you could hope for for your kid was big tech.
• 12:20
  Big software company, publicly traded- Big money stock options.
• 12:24
  Yeah, all the benefits, free food in the break, break room, you know, s- extra time in the day if you have feelings you can go ex- to special room and have feelings.
• 12:31
  Yeah, dog therapy and dentist appointments paid for- Yeah on site.
• 12:35
  And a lot of those people measured their wealth or their net worth in their stock options, right?
• 12:44
  This is many young people from top universities, the elite talent of the country really, and this is, this is a recent post.
• 12:52
  What is this, about a week old or so?
• 12:54
  Yep.
• 12:55
  Look at the absolute destruction in the stocks- Just like that happening here.
• 13:00
  So those employees that they may, they may be sitting on stock options right now that were given to them in a previous year at a good deal that they can't exercise now because the stock- They're underwater right.
• 13:12
  Yeah, so, so this is, this is widespread, man.
• 13:15
  I don't, I don't know how to add up all the, uh, kind of market cap destruction that's on this page, but there's some big companies.
• 13:22
  You know, SAP at 208 billion, you know, Applovin at 126 billion.
• 13:28
  Uh, Intuit, the tax company, 100 billion.
• 13:31
  Uh, that's a, that's a lot of kind of wealth destruction that's happened.
• 13:35
  Why?
• 13:36
  'Cause AI changed everything and people don't have confidence in software as a service anymore.
• 13:40
  Um, so that- that's five years, right, from, from let's call it'21 until today that big tech was the best thing you could do.
• 13:49
  Now you gotta really be skeptical, right?
• 13:51
  It's like,'cause those are where the layoffs are happening, and that's where the wealth destruction's happening.
• 13:57
  It's, it's not the, uh, you know, clear path to nice life, nice livelihood, big house, all that anymore.
• 14:04
  I mean, it's...
• 14:06
  Uncertainty is the name of the game at this point.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  So the other thing I wanna highlight for young people, so we talked about manufacturing as a big market opportunity.
• 14:15
  Uh, do you care if I pitch my industry?
• 14:17
  Can I do that real quick?
• 14:18
  Go for it.
• 14:18
  I would love it.
• 14:19
  Okay.
• 14:20
  All right.
• 14:21
  So this is also for the 15-year-old out there, um, is, uh, let's check this one out.
• 14:30
  So here's what we have.
• 14:34
  This, I, I occasionally take stuff from LinkedIn and put it on X'cause people on X act like they can't go back and forth, right?
• 14:41
  And, uh, but w- I love it.
• 14:43
  There's certain weeks when LinkedIn actually is, has better content than X.
• 14:47
  Doesn't happen all year, but it does happen.
• 14:49
  It's wh- it's when they, wh- i- it's when the kid messes with the, uh, the algorithm a bit.
• 14:52
  That's right.
• 14:53
  Yeah, it broke the algorithm again.
• 14:55
  So, but check this out.
• 14:56
  So robotics, which is a niche industry, I've been telling everybody we're on day one of robotics for this country.
• 15:03
  It is still day one.
• 15:04
  You know, I've, I've now got nine years full-time into it.
• 15:07
  It's still day one, right?
• 15:09
  We're just beginning.
• 15:10
  The entire road is ahead of us.
• 15:13
  So it's a cottage industry.
• 15:14
  Robotics is a cottage industry.
• 15:16
  There's, there's very few even, like, university programs where you graduate with, like, a, a robotics engineering degree or something.
• 15:24
  And they're already publishing that there's 13,000 unfilled open jobs in robotics right now.
• 15:30
  Every young student that likes tech wants to get into robotics.
• 15:33
  They can't fill the jobs.
• 15:35
  At our company, we have unfilled jobs, you know?
• 15:39
  So, and what's also cool is this is a good heat map on the states.
• 15:44
  Great news for California kids, right?
• 15:46
  They're number one.
• 15:47
  Yeah.
• 15:47
  Texas, number two.
• 15:49
  Uh, New York, which is a manufacturing powerhouse.
• 15:53
  This is kind of your region.
• 15:54
  We'll give you credit.
• 15:55
  Yeah, kind of Northeast, Midwest corridor kind of thing.
• 15:57
  Yeah.
• 15:57
  Here, this is you.
• 15:58
  Look at that strong- The legacy backbone top there And you look up here- Period and I mean- Michigan but look, look where production...
• 16:04
  You, that, those are spots where you've got a lot of, you know, the manufacturing and that's just, you know, it makes sense that that's happening side by side with it.
• 16:13
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  And, and I'm very proud that Florida came in on the top list, you know?
• 16:17
  So we're, we're probably about number six or seven here.
• 16:20
  Uh, but yeah, Fl- in Florida there's open jobs right now that many, that robotic companies can't fill, and young people need to be getting after that, right?
• 16:30
  So that to me is just a big, uh, kind of opportunity, though.
• 16:34
  And then here's the other one, the old, uh, skate to where the puck is going.
• 16:39
  Um, let's see if we can pull this one up.
• 16:42
  Is, um...
• 16:48
  Check this out.
• 16:51
  This is also happening right now.
• 16:53
  This is the new data.
• 16:54
  I picked this up from, uh, four or five different posters, so I just grabbed the, the most recent one.
• 17:00
  Um, but this is...
• 17:02
  You, you probably see me post on X all the time, the workforce is changing.
• 17:06
  You know, I'm not trying to be political, and I'm not trying to pick a side on- It, it, it's a fact it is changing.
• 17:12
  So le- asylum seekers, these are typically unskilled workers, right, coming in.
• 17:18
  Asylum seekers are down basically to zero.
• 17:22
  Um, let's see.
• 17:25
  The, um- That last chart.
• 17:28
  What, down here?
• 17:29
  Yeah.
• 17:29
  The visas?
• 17:30
  Yeah, we'll get to, well, that's the grand finale'cause that's, that's, that's what's c- causing you to not pay back your student loans- is those H-1Bs.
• 17:37
  But you look at the, the permanent immigrant visas, this, the, you would assume this is high skilled if, you know, for the most part if you're getting a permanent visa'cause you're a scientist or a musician or whatever, whatever you are.
• 17:51
  Um- That's, that's dropping like crazy, right?
• 17:55
  So from a peak of about 60,000, they think we're, we're cut in half now on permanent visas annually.
• 18:03
  And then the refugee admissions, you know, so that obviously peaked under Joe Biden where they really expanded that program and it's, it's down to, to nothing, uh, right here.
• 18:17
  Now, here's the one that, this is the one that is causing you to have anxiety if you work at Big Tech or big consulting.
• 18:22
  It's the, it's the H-1Bs in that a company can do an American workforce layoff and then go apply for H-1B visas to bring in folks, usually from a specific ethnicity.
• 18:34
  I think that's what's really been revealed in the H-1B, is that you can bring in 100 H-1Bs to your, your company.
• 18:42
  They're foreign nationals, they move to the US under H-1B, they replace the American workers.
• 18:46
  But they all come from like one town in, in India or, you know, China or wherever they're from.
• 18:52
  There's a whole industry around it.
• 18:53
  Yeah.
• 18:54
  It turns out, you know, the whole thing is looking more and more kinda like one of these kinda, you know, scams if you will, where the intent of the law has been kind of abused by the bureaucracy and, and the, the lawyers and everybody involved in that industry.
• 19:08
  But yeah, if you just look, so you know, Trump imposed the$100,000 fee and that basically cut...
• 19:19
  This, this one's hard to read.
• 19:20
  The Trump numbers I think are, uh, the yellow and the blue are Biden.
• 19:24
  That basically cut the H-1Bs in half with just that.
• 19:27
  Was saying if they're really that good, pay$100,000 application fee.
• 19:31
  And I think that number's still coming down.
• 19:32
  My understanding is that H-1B is a three-year visa and it has to be renewed every three years.
• 19:38
  Yep.
• 19:39
  So you've only really affected last year's applicants with the new rule.
• 19:44
  There's still people that have two years left on their H-1B that had already been granted.
• 19:48
  So I think that number probably continues to drop.
• 19:52
  What does all that mean?
• 19:54
  You know, it's the skate to where the puck is going.
• 19:56
  You got openings in robotics, openings in manufacturing, and then you have less com- competition from non-US citizens, right?
• 20:06
  And I, I think one of the things is, okay, so we're, we're seeing maybe the opportunities, the, the applicant pool may perhaps shrinking a little bit because of some of these, um, factors just discussed.
• 20:23
  But you know, you still have, okay, 15-year-old kid, what, what are they...
• 20:28
  They're start- They most, you know, for the last decade plus, 15, 20 years, people are already thinking school.
• 20:33
  What college they're going to, the extracurriculars, this, that or whatever.
• 20:38
  Uh, um, this comment is not focused on kind of whether or not to go to college- One of my big things is I think we send kids to school, make them commit to a degree before they know what they wanna do.
• 20:50
  My recommendation to a parent, if you've got kids, is have them take a gap year or two.
• 20:57
  Love it.
• 20:57
  So b- a- and make them get a job.
• 21:01
  This isn't, you know, go be an Instagram influencer or whatever, you know, it is.
• 21:05
  But they need to go get a job, r- different jobs.
• 21:09
  You know?
• 21:09
  It's not one job for two years.
• 21:10
  Or figure out what they like.
• 21:13
  And I say this, you know, to anyone, figure out what you don't like, you know, as much as anything.
• 21:19
  'Cause you're not gonna find everything you love for what you, what you wanna do forever, but you'll know what things you really don't wanna do.
• 21:25
  And that- Colin, did you work in high school?
• 21:27
  I did.
• 21:28
  I did.
• 21:28
  Good.
• 21:28
  I got, I got- Yeah my first job when I was 13.
• 21:31
  I had all different jobs.
• 21:32
  I mean, I was a paintball ref at one point, so getting- Ugh.
• 21:34
  shot all the time by jerks.
• 21:36
  You know, that teaches you something.
• 21:38
  I worked- Yeah um, in summers I worked in a fastener manufacturing shop.
• 21:42
  Yeah.
• 21:42
  Um, it was- We can't make- one of my coach's brothers.
• 21:45
  Um, I, I always had, you know, I think I did co- like, promoted concerts, you know, Chamillionaire at one point.
• 21:50
  It was pretty cool.
• 21:51
  Yeah.
• 21:51
  Um, dating myself a bit now.
• 21:53
  Um, but no, I, I've, I've always, you know, worked basically since I was able to.
• 21:58
  Um, just, I like to be busy.
• 22:00
  But also that's part of what has helped me figure out what I like and don't like, and then can go dive into those concepts more.
• 22:08
  So if we give- Absolutely kids these opportunities to explore different jobs, different functions, that's gonna help them kind of steer towards d- you know, what their education journey looks like.
• 22:20
  Yeah.
• 22:21
  Does it need to be four years?
• 22:22
  Does it need to be vo-tech?
• 22:23
  Does it need to be a,"Hey, this place is just gonna train me.
• 22:26
  Great.
• 22:26
  I can grow there." Yeah.
• 22:28
  Back in my day, you absolutely could not take a gap year, right?
• 22:33
  It was- Yeah I have an immigrant dad, so he, his focus in coming to America was to, like, make it, to get his citizen- Yeah ship, to, you know, build a h- build a family, buy a house.
• 22:43
  Like, the kind of the, the white picket fence American dream.
• 22:47
  So the, the idea of gap year would've caused my father to have probably, you know, harm me pretty severely if I had- Oh, it, it, I was explicitly told it wasn't an option for me.
• 22:57
  Right.
• 22:58
  I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I,"Nope, not an option." And but I think you're wise to suggest that.
• 23:03
  What I ended up doing in college was I did the internships that actually added a full year to my degree, uh, all those internships.
• 23:11
  And I also had the opportunity to do a study abroad.
• 23:14
  So I did, uh, one, one semester all across the Pacific Rim.
• 23:19
  And that was, for me, that was the kind of horizon broadening opportunity.
• 23:22
  I then went on to have a very, uh, international career, and I think it was because in, in college I got that opportunity to experience different cultures in the learning environment.
• 23:30
  So I went to university in, um, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan for a semester.
• 23:36
  So for me- Yeah that was incredibly powerful.
• 23:38
  My wife- Very straight-laced, amazing student.
• 23:41
  She triple majored, right?
• 23:44
  Yeah, if you wanna feel bad about yourself, my wife triple majored and had a minor and still graduated in four years.
• 23:50
  Um, she was recruited, she was six for six on applications to med school, and she took it...
• 23:56
  Yeah, right?
• 23:57
  And so if you're a parent who- Not, not too bad like,"That's what I want for my kid." Yeah.
• 24:01
  And, uh, and she took a gap year.
• 24:03
  We met on her gap year, and she started to refocus her priorities and she thought,"Man, this med school thing will never end." You know, you're not actually working as a doctor till your early 30s in a lot of specialties.
• 24:16
  Yeah.
• 24:16
  So that was 10 years left on the road for her, and what she determined was she'd rather become a physician assistant.
• 24:24
  So my wife has a m- a master's in medicine, which enables her to be a physician assistant.
• 24:28
  Um, she has the hardest job a physician assistant can have.
• 24:32
  She's the ER frontline.
• 24:33
  So if you go to the emergency room, yeah, if you need to get sewn up, you wanna see my wife.
• 24:37
  She's the one.
• 24:37
  Yeah.
• 24:37
  She'll pick you up.
• 24:38
  Uh, but that gap year taught her that she could be in full-time practice as a licensed PA two years from starting med school versus the 10 years when you do traditional med school and your residencies and then your specialist and all these things.
• 24:56
  It, it, you get to the ROI thing, time, value, all of that.
• 25:00
  You know, when I discovered the PA stuff a couple years back, I was like,"This is amazing." Yeah.
• 25:05
  Like, why, w- why is this not more widely adopted and used?
• 25:09
  I mean,'cause...
• 25:09
  And, and she's, you know, clearly a perfect example of- Yeah that's a, a great path to pursue.
• 25:16
  Well, by the time she would've gone into her, um, her classmates that started med school when she started PA school, by the time they went into full-time practice in, you know, complex professions like OBs and, and, uh, surgeons, she had, my wife had four kids.
• 25:34
  You know?
• 25:34
  And, and none of them had any kids, right?
• 25:36
  Yeah.
• 25:36
  So for her as a female, having a, a much more accelerated career path, she already had eight years in the ER in practice.
• 25:45
  She had four kids, like, her life was much more flexible.
• 25:49
  Uh, and that's the other thing I think is for parents that put this pressure on their kid to go the most professional route, which you might consider legal, may- maybe engineering, that's a little faster, but legal, um, you know, some of the, the financially regulated things, doctors, those, those fields, man, you're really putting your life on pause as well.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:11
  If you wanna start a family, if you wanna start making money and buy a house, yeah, sure, you'll make good money later, but it's, it's another 10 years after college before you get to do anything.
• 26:21
  Well, and I think that, that actually kind of is a great lead to another one of the questions that we had is, what about women getting into the trades in manufacturing?
• 26:30
  You know, what are some of the things, you know, that are happening out there?
• 26:33
  And, uh, y- y- you know, I think the point you just hit on is for women, it's kind of a cho- a, a, a decision they have to make is do you want a career or do you want, you know, to have kids?
• 26:45
  Do you wanna go...
• 26:47
  I- it's one or the other.
• 26:49
  As we both know, once you have kids, you know, that gets into, well, those first few years till they get off to preschool, you know, it's full time, you know, taking care of them type of thing.
• 26:59
  But even once kids get a little bit older, now you have, you know, individuals who haven't been able to be in the workforce for a few years.
• 27:08
  So you've created a gap in, you know, professional experience.
• 27:12
  One of the things that, um, my ex brother-in-law, they have a pretty s- uh, sizable plastic injection molding business.
• 27:20
  Um, and they do something that I, I absolutely love.
• 27:23
  They have a, uh, like a flex shift.
• 27:26
  So for parents, they cons- will schedule, let's say, you know, five hour, four hour, five hour shift, basically after, starts after school drop-off and stops, you know, before school pickup.
• 27:41
  So, you know, no, these aren't, you know, necessarily full-time roles, but for somebody who wants to work, who is, you know, looking for additional income, it's not a decision of, well, do I have to then go get childcare, do all that or work?
• 27:57
  No.
• 27:57
  They're able to get the kids off to school, pick them up, take care of it, and in the middle of that, you know, they're able to work, you know, four or five hour shift, you know, five days a week type of thing, and i- i- they've had massive success with it.
• 28:11
  So it's- Yeah a huge part of that comes down to employers.
• 28:15
  You know, a, a great way to address the workforce shortage is being flexible and looking at, you know, different options on how you actually can support that and make it happen.
• 28:26
  Totally.
• 28:26
  Yeah, and I, I do feel I have a large amount of empathy, um, for women in the workforce'cause it's a tough balance.
• 28:34
  Uh, a smart woman or a driven woman wants, wants to do well in their career, right?
• 28:39
  Um, I know a lot of women that are the breadwinners for their families.
• 28:42
  Um, b- at the same time, you've got, you know, family planning to deal with, and you, I think, you know, our generation is where a lot of, you know, it's kind of Instagram generation, is where a lot of women started to value career and partying over actually doing, you know, f- finding a husband and getting married and having kids and becoming a part of a community and, and a responsible part of their community.
• 29:13
  So what, um, I agree with you.
• 29:15
  I think it's on the employers have to provide flexibility.
• 29:19
  The only way this becomes mainstream- Well- is for more and more employers to do it, right?
• 29:23
  Yeah.
• 29:23
  So what your brother-in-law is doing, he's the, he's automatically the employer of choice for an entire category of underutilized workers, which are people that wanna work when their kids are in school, but it's not practical, or is it even smart for them to work when their kids are at home.
• 29:37
  They need to be there with their kids.
• 29:39
  You know, I'm a father of four, you know, I'm, I'm all about, uh, family.
• 29:43
  And, uh, so I'll, I'll give you an example, since I'm doing my s- I'm getting good with the screen shares today.
• 29:52
  You know, this is, this is what we're doing about it.
• 29:57
  You know, so Chang Robotics, uh, female led.
• 30:01
  Our company president, Kate, she has, she's my business partner.
• 30:05
  Um, she's, she's got three little kids, and they're always home with her.
• 30:11
  I mean, it seems like every time we, we're on Microsoft Teams or whatever, I see a kid in the background.
• 30:16
  Uh, she's very active in their schools, but she's leading a company, and she was the female entrepreneur of the year last year for the country, right?
• 30:25
  That's awesome.
• 30:25
  So you can do it, you can do it all.
• 30:27
  But she did, just to kinda share her story, she did do what I described earlier, which is, um, she went to a good school.
• 30:35
  She went to Syracuse.
• 30:37
  She graduated with an engineering degree.
• 30:39
  She apprenticed as an engineer for the minimum time required.
• 30:43
  It's, uh, four years in Florida.
• 30:45
  She passed her professional engineer's exam on the first try, and then she was a licensed, uh, you know, professional engineer.
• 30:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:54
  From there, you know, her, she didn't have to throttle back on her time until she started having kids, right?
• 31:00
  So she was probably working, you know, as hard as anybody else, same number of hours and same travel commitment up until she had kids, and then she had to change.
• 31:09
  That was my opportunity.
• 31:11
  Like, I ha- I wanted to recruit her when our company was less than a year old, and I waited till she was super pregnant and her company was asking her to go build a factory or install a thermal oxidizer or s- something.
• 31:24
  And I was like,"Hey, is that, is that tough when you're, you're past seven months pregnant and they're still asking you to fly everywhere?" She's like,"I don't like it." I mean, what pregnant lady wants to fly then?
• 31:34
  Yeah.
• 31:35
  And, uh, and so that was our story.
• 31:37
  I was like,"Well, listen, if that's not working out, you can, uh, you can work whatever number of hours you want.
• 31:42
  You can work from home with Chang Robotics." Such an easy sales pitch.
• 31:47
  But if you think about just on women, the ch- your brother-in-law's doing this, we're doing it.
• 31:52
  We're very flexible with maternity and paternity events at my company.
• 31:56
  We don't even really have a policy.
• 31:57
  It's just like, take care of yourself first, right?
• 32:00
  Like, be there for your family.
• 32:03
  You know, it make, it, we have this secret weapon- And I have told so many big company CEOs this, that if you could just get flexible specifically with women, it also applies to, to fathers I think, but most importantly women.
• 32:16
  If you would just get flexible with them, you would have so much more retention, you would have higher- 100% workforce, you know?
• 32:24
  And people just don't get it.
• 32:26
  P- They, they...
• 32:27
  You- you've got...
• 32:28
  That's a whole issue we have, you know, way beyond this, is just the performative nature of, oh, you're online from, you know, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
• 32:38
  Get out of here.
• 32:39
  Like- Right how much of the time are you wasting?
• 32:41
  No, I care about results and output and, you know, what they are doing.
• 32:46
  I, you know, if, if you're working from 10 to midnight instead of, you know, getting online at 8:00 AM, you know, okay.
• 32:54
  But it's, you know...
• 32:55
  That, you're 100% right, that's a huge, you know, secret weapon, huge lever to unlock in terms of talent.
• 33:01
  It, it's that flexibility.
• 33:03
  Yeah.
• 33:03
  You know?
• 33:04
  And I, I'd say for, for men, you know, it's, it's the in-the-office thing.
• 33:08
  Uh,"I need you in the chair from 8:00 to 5:00," or whatever it is.
• 33:12
  Well, to your point, how much of the time are you goofing off while you're doing that?
• 33:16
  We, you know, again, at our company, we don't have that sort of policy.
• 33:20
  We expect the work to get done, and what I tell everybody,"I need grade A work today.
• 33:25
  I need A player work." And if there's ever a day, let's say you got the flu or whatever, y- e- every day you can't deliver A level work, don't show up.
• 33:35
  Like, I literally, I don't want it.
• 33:36
  If you're gonna bring me B, B level work, I don't even want it, right?
• 33:40
  Just keep it.
• 33:42
  Only show up when you're at 100%.
• 33:45
  If that's five hours a day, you, you know this, some people get more work done in five hours than others get done in a week, right?
• 33:53
  Yeah.
• 33:53
  And the, the key for the manager is to be able to spot that and identify it.
• 33:57
  What I don't get about both these...
• 33:58
  So what, so with, with dads, what I'd say is we really need to give fathers back their time with that flexibility.
• 34:05
  You can get here maybe after you've dropped the kids off, you can leave so that you can be with the family for dinner.
• 34:11
  And look, if there's a deadline, yeah, you might have to fire up the laptop at 9 at night when you put all the kids to bed, right?
• 34:17
  And that, we should not look down on that type of work culture that flex- Oh, I agree I think it leads to a happier, um, employee.
• 34:25
  And what I've found is that when we have, like, our annual Christmas parties, I'll meet a lot of the spouses.
• 34:30
  Man, I get, every year I get several hugs from a spouse that where we've hired, you know, their husband or, or wife, and they'll, they'll hug me and they'll say,"The, the way you guys work has changed everything.
• 34:39
  Like my..." We'll just pick on the men.
• 34:41
  "My husband is more present with the kids, you know, he's coaching the little league team.
• 34:45
  They have all these new opportunities they weren't doing, and I still, like, feel like I'm getting exceptional value for money,"'cause we- Everybody wins right.
• 34:54
  So I don't understand why we can't do this.
• 34:57
  I'm gonna blame it all on HR Karen, right?
• 35:00
  I, I- The funny thing is- buy that.
• 35:01
  I'm, I'm good.
• 35:01
  I think Sterling can, has probably a meme for that Yeah, I'm sure he does.
• 35:05
  The- most HR groups are led by women, and here we are complaining that workplaces aren't flexible enough for women, right?
• 35:14
  So I think we have to, your brother-in-law's company, my company, more of us just n- need to be noisy about this.
• 35:21
  And when the rest of the companies see us just crushing them on talent acquisition, they'll eventually start to turn our way and it's good for everybody.
• 35:28
  Yeah.
• 35:29
  I mean, I, I think it's, it, it comes down to we've, I think broadly speaking, we've got to be a bit more realistic from the beginning with kids saying, you know, being realistic about what their prospects are, you know, two years in, what, what, what is it gonna look like in two years when you graduate?
• 35:45
  Parents, you know, being realistic about what their kids are gonna be trying to do in a couple of years.
• 35:51
  You know, is it trade school?
• 35:53
  Is it taking a gap year?
• 35:54
  Is it going four years?
• 35:56
  Got to be realistic with them and, you know, frankly themselves and get pa- passed their ego of their kid not going to whatever Ivy or whatever you want to say.
• 36:04
  And then I think it comes down to, you know, employers got to be realistic about what it's gonna take to bring in, you know, the talent to fill the roles that they claim are out there that they want to fill.
• 36:15
  You know, i- if you want to fill them with the best people and get the best results, it's got to be a two-way street and you got to give and take a little bit.
• 36:22
  That's right.
• 36:23
  Yeah, so let, let's just take that 15-year-old.
• 36:26
  I don't know if we had another question that you wanted to do today or if that was an...
• 36:29
  We covered several with our answers.
• 36:32
  But let's take that 15-year-old that the mom is starting to think differently.
• 36:36
  The 15-year-old's probably still headed i, in a direct path of,"My friends are talking about college, so I want to go to college," which then sets up, you know, GPAs and SAT scores and all the, all the, you know, college tours.
• 36:50
  Like the, the whole process begins.
• 36:53
  What I would say to the 15-year-olds out there that are interested in being in a place where they could talk about these things like you and I do, Colin, when they're our age, is, uh, number one, you've got to be doing an AI project right now.
• 37:10
  Yeah.
• 37:10
  You have to be.
• 37:11
  You go find a pro- could be for your church.
• 37:14
  You know, go, go ask one of the pastors at your church if you can help them with something.
• 37:19
  Uh, could be social media, could be collecting money, whatever, whatever it is, organizing, uh, you know, the volunteers.
• 37:26
  Go to your school, ask if there's anything you can be doing.
• 37:30
  Without necessarily having to get paid, you need to go find a project where you can do the project beginning to end with AI infused through the whole thing.
• 37:40
  And for the average 15-year-old out there, I think that's almost the new table stakes, is that you got to be able to operate at that level.
• 37:46
  You got to build a little, a mini portfolio, you know?
• 37:49
  Right.
• 37:50
  Everyone can run their resume through AI and have it, you know, put, put lipstick on a pig, but, you know, solve a problem.
• 37:58
  Show some real results The, the next thing I would do before graduating high school is see if now that I've got my first resume item, right,'cause I did a project, see if I can get somebody to pay me for that.
• 38:11
  I could go as an intern to a business.
• 38:14
  We, we let our interns deploy AI at company.
• 38:17
  By the way, we pay our interns starting at, uh, 25 bucks an hour.
• 38:20
  So back to your point on internship- That's good right, right?
• 38:23
  Imagine that.
• 38:24
  Um- That's gonna be two Frosties.
• 38:26
  That's right.
• 38:28
  Well, they got rid of the dollar menu at Wendy's, so we did have to raise our prices as well.
• 38:32
  So, you know, the, um, w- with those stu- students, before you graduate high school, can you get a business to pay you?
• 38:40
  Could be your, your dad's friend's company, it could be your, you know, your, uh, brother-in-law's company or whatever.
• 38:48
  You could just be an intern, but see if you can get paid to do that, right?
• 38:51
  And that business, and th- this is gonna be true for the next couple years, that business is gonna have their mind explode when a 17 or 18-year-old walks in and starts running agentic AI with databases and developing apps and websites- Yep and new functionality.
• 39:08
  It, they're j- it's gonna be like seeing the future when some young kid walks in.
• 39:14
  And, and I would further support you in saying that gap year should be dedicated to full-time work.
• 39:21
  I, I think that- I, I think that's, you know, y- people love the fail fast or whatever, kind of extrapolating the, the concept of move quickly and try things that do or don't work.
• 39:33
  Do it with actual work, you know?
• 39:35
  Yeah.
• 39:35
  Work different jobs, be busy, be productive, but be, be busy and, and l- that's a whole different learning experience, I think.
• 39:44
  Yeah.
• 39:44
  In high school, I'm just gonna do my high school jobs to give...
• 39:47
  firstly, the young people can laugh, but also, uh, s- to give them a sense of what it looks like to work when you don't have many skills.
• 39:55
  I was a caterer, so I was the guy that I wore a, a, uh, black bow tie- Yeah, you had your bow t- clip-on bow tie, and you had- Yeah your white shirt and black tie socks I didn't have a clip-on.
• 40:05
  It was, the tie was pre-tied, you know?
• 40:07
  Yeah.
• 40:07
  So it was like, uh, had the latch in the back.
• 40:10
  So I'd wear the bow tie.
• 40:11
  I'd go to really rich people's houses, and I would help set up, you know, the pasta dishes and whatever.
• 40:16
  And by the time I finished high school, I got to make the desserts.
• 40:20
  So I was actually in the kitchen making food as part of the catering team.
• 40:25
  Well, that was neat because it was infrequent, so it worked with my sports schedule, you know, and I could, I could just pick up the catering gigs that I wanted.
• 40:32
  And then it was a lot of fun because, you know, I'm seeing like generally very successful adults and how they behave at night, you know, when they're having all their friends over.
• 40:42
  I also worked in the mall.
• 40:43
  I know we don't have malls anymore.
• 40:45
  Um- Oh, they're making a comeback apparently I worked in the mall at Spencer Gifts You remember Spencer's?
• 40:51
  Nice.
• 40:52
  Oh, yeah.
• 40:52
  Yeah.
• 40:53
  Oh, yeah.
• 40:53
  Lava lamps and body piercings, and just like all the goofy wacky stuff.
• 40:57
  Today that stuff's on Amazon, but, um, but that was a super weird job.
• 41:02
  The lowest paid job I ever had.
• 41:03
  It's the only time I ever got paid actual minimum wage was at Spencer's Gifts.
• 41:08
  And then, um- Worked at Hollister and Abercrombie Fitch and got the same thing, so.
• 41:12
  And you get your discount on- Thank- thank- thankless work.
• 41:16
  Yeah.
• 41:16
  If you guys can imagine Colin in a turtleneck.
• 41:18
  We knew he had some.
• 41:20
  And then the- Double polo collar.
• 41:21
  Come on the one other one I did that was my absolute favorite job was I was a landscaper every summer, and it was the hardest.
• 41:29
  I mean- That is hard work.
• 41:30
  That sun all day worked a lot of summers.
• 41:32
  Oh, it was hot.
• 41:33
  But it was gratifying because all day as a young, you know, young man, you're- you're working as hard as you can, hauling, wheelbarrowing, driving a Bobcat, raking, axing, whatever you're doing.
• 41:44
  And then at the end of the day, though, you could measure your work.
• 41:48
  You're like- Yeah"We cut this many acres of grass," or,"I planted this many trees," or whatever.
• 41:53
  And I really had a great time landscaping.
• 41:56
  Um, and that was, that was high school for me, on top of sports and on top of extracurriculars and church and everything.
• 42:04
  So I think your point is, for that active high school student, there's no reason not to have an active gap year where you're still doing all the same things, but it's not going to school anymore, it's going to work.
• 42:16
  I agree.
• 42:16
  I mean, I- I think that it's, it's unpopular.
• 42:20
  I, you know, you said your folks never allowed...
• 42:23
  I mean, I was the same boat.
• 42:24
  You know, I- I was not sure about college.
• 42:26
  I wanted to, you know, enlist at one point, you know, and it was just,"No, you're, you're getting a four d- year degree." So it wasn't an option for me.
• 42:36
  In hindsight, man, I would have loved to just be able to, you know, keep working in a shop, try different things.
• 42:43
  Yeah.
• 42:43
  Just y- you learn...
• 42:44
  I'm a big fan of experiential learning, you know?
• 42:46
  That's how you're gonna figure out where your little quirk or neat thing is.
• 42:50
  I mean, you- you talk about driving a Bobcat, you drive one of those, like I'm sorry, if you don't find the pneumatics on that working when you get to dump something, if you don't find the, you know, how the tracks actually operate, if you don't find that cool, okay, I think you're insane, but that's, you know, my aside.
• 43:07
  You know, those are things that, hey, how does that work?
• 43:10
  And you, that's a whole pathway that, that can lead you down to, into engineering, into industrial maintenance, who knows?
• 43:18
  But, you know, I- I think it's a big opportunity.
• 43:20
  You know, we just, we've gotta encourage that.
• 43:21
  We- we've got to...
• 43:23
  It's about shifting kind of the expectations and, and what- Yeah the future's gonna look like for the workforce.
• 43:30
  Yeah.
• 43:30
  Let, let me add a, a cherry on top for the 15-year-old out there.
• 43:35
  By the time you're 18, you need to be somebody's apprentice.
• 43:39
  And I don't wanna say go get a mentor.
• 43:42
  So, you know, I'm sure on this, um, podcast we'll talk about my book.
• 43:46
  I have an entire chapter on mentors, and another chapter on being, becoming a mentor.
• 43:52
  After you've had mentors, you need to become a mentor.
• 43:54
  But for the 18-year-old, I don't think that's necessarily the most honest transaction.
• 43:59
  Um, I think the 18-year-old needs to be somebody's apprentice, which means the person that they're apprenticing under is a master of their craft.
• 44:08
  Yep.
• 44:08
  If it's landscaping, that's fine.
• 44:10
  If it's machining, that's fine.
• 44:13
  Um, if it's, if it's music, that's fine.
• 44:16
  But they need to be in a position of kind of, um, learning from and studying under a master, and then putting themselves to work.
• 44:25
  So I, I think we've ratified it, like it's, it's gap year or bust, you know?
• 44:29
  Nobody should be going straight from high school to college.
• 44:33
  I sit on a university board- I've been- they're gonna be mad at me for saying that.
• 44:35
  Yeah.
• 44:37
  But to your point, it's so uncertain.
• 44:40
  People need more time to figure out what they wanna do, and I think where we started this was the student debt.
• 44:46
  We need to really be cautious and skeptical of the time spend and the money spend to go to university, and really challenge that out, because things are changing fast, and I ho- hopefully we shared a few examples today.
• 45:00
  I think, yeah, I mean, w- we had a few more questions that we hit on, but I think w- we covered a, a wide swath of them.
• 45:05
  I mean, I, I think hopefully, you know, we, we were able to answer, uh, some of the questions we got.
• 45:11
  Hopefully, uh, y- you guys enjoyed it.
• 45:14
  Um, Matt, I think it was another great episode.
• 45:16
  Um, I, I know next week we've got some, uh, exciting guests coming up.
• 45:21
  Um, so as we get ready to, uh, close the show, uh, to the audience, make sure you are following us on socials at The Reforge Pod.
• 45:30
  And you can find Matt on X at Matthew Chang.
• 45:34
  You can find me there as well, That Colin.
• 45:37
  And Matt, anything else you wanna say?
• 45:39
  No, that's it.
• 45:41
  Keep sending us young people so that we can train them in to be robotic engineers.
• 45:45
  That's all I need.
• 45:46
  There you go.
• 45:46
  All right.
• 45:47
  All right.
• 45:47
  Thanks, everyone.
• 45:53
  Thanks for tuning in to the Reforge Podcast.
• 45:55
  Make sure to like, subscribe and follow us on all of our social media at the Reforge Pod.
• 46:01
  We'll see you next time.