Latest / The Vincere Project / Episode 17. Ethical Future
Transcript
- Vince: Back at it, we're doing it. The Vincere project keeps going. Man. Middle of the summer now, super, super hot. And we got a heat wave coming through and I like it like that. I enjoy the heat. It reminds me of, reminds me of the Middle East sometimes. I kind of like that. Arizona reminds me of that, except the Middle East smells like crap garbage. It stinks for the most part. Some sanitary. It's kind of gross. You know, that's, what it is over there in many ways. Yeah, I don't know. I think about that a lot of times like, hey, you know, the more energy that a country produces, the more energy a country consumes, you know, the more energy a person uses, the more energy a human consumes. And I don't think it's a balance. I think it's a juggling act. And I think, you know, those systems, right, whether it's in the literal sense of power generation or human consumption and management, lived experience, requires a great degree of responsibility and harnessing and tinkering and tailoring and maintenance and upkeep. And sometimes, you know, think about surgery, you to swap the parts out or on an apparatus or a device or a system or mechanism. Right. And I think that's kind of kind of everything driven by ethical decisions. You know, which is cool because that's where I live. Right. I live in a world that's ethically considered. You're dealing with human beings and human services and counseling. coaching and corporate trainings in the classroom and you know ultimately my job is to think and make decisions as a business owner and investor and those two things are accelerators like I've shared before in the podcast and you know some rules for myself I had to create because I'm fully capable of doing these kinds of things is lying cheating and stealing you know something people glamorize or glorify is the nature of like combat or war the streets or how business is done or the hostilities or being taken advantage of or taking advantage of people. Everything has to be confrontational or adversarial or, you know, there's hatred involved and all of these things. I don't think so. I don't think it's that way at all. I think people that lie, cheat and steal eventually get found out. You know, they kind of run themselves out of town and can't continue to do business in an ethical sound way. However, there is a scenario I like to I use it with my graduate students in particular. It's probably not appropriate for undergraduate, but graduate students, I use an exercise that's very, very realistic and relevant to business. And I think it applies to people that work in hospital settings, clinical settings, private practice. And when you're looking at monetary gain or fiscal gain or fiduciary responsibility or manipulation of values or valuations or... currency and things like that. It's like people, nothing can surprise us in that, People will do all sorts of things to gain advantages over other competitive advantage. But let's say I'm Benoist to you or I, right? You wander into a situation and in my case, in my business, you wander into a situation where you see there or find or uncover or develop or design, which is more nefarious because it's intentional and deliberate, right? Strict or harsher sentencing. there's a leak in the system and you decide to commit fraud and all of a sudden you manage to steal $5 billion through a glitch in an insurance company's financial system or how their accounting or whatever, right? Most likely it'd be accounting. And now that thing is spitting cash at a rapid rapid rate and you just managed to steal $5 billion and then you get caught. But before that, you do some diligence and you find out that if you're caught, you would just have to pay back X amount and you get to keep the rest. what would you do? And I find that most folks will say like, I would never do that. I wouldn't get involved with that. But again, remember part of the study or the framework or the case conceptualization is that maybe you didn't do it intentionally and you became complicit in a circumstance or situation, right? Like, does that make you liable? In many scenarios, it doesn't, right? Like we have found that SEC does that in the financial world. But my point all of it is with ethical decisions is that that's the ambiguity of the world we live in, right? And it's more so than it's ever been. And I find that, you know, when things are crystallized and super, super clear and we're able to enact on known facts or known knowns and we don't have to deal with the unknowns or the known unknowns or unknown knowns, right? And work through that whole matrix or some sort of decision-making process to account for everything and anything. some of the best frameworks that decisions get made on are on a piece of paper and they're oversimplified. In the truest sense, right? It doesn't mean that we don't want to have the nuance or be really in touch with the complexities of a system or a thing or a trade or a craft or a deal or decision point. Like that is to take account for and that's individually specific and it depends on the type of person you are and how you do things. But I found repeatedly in my work at this point with a small business and Definitely, definitely, definitely in studying and learning from other people that are well advanced beyond me in business is like, most deals are done on that handshake and can be sorted out on one piece of paper or a napkin. It doesn't mean that there aren't super, super complex things connected to the business deal or the arrangement or the agreement, but it's just super, super clear in the dealings with that person, place or thing. We take account for the outliers with insurance companies and that's why we have lawyers and protection policies and all sorts of administrative things to do. And large organizations have bureaucratic HRs that get in the way of progress. But I don't know, I think for me, I look at it as I wanna just have a super, super small team, right? And do it the ethical way where these are practicing clinicians, they're partners in the division or organization. They understand we're a profit based organization and that we're running lean and mean and that toilet paper costs money. And then ultimately over time, figure out how do we gain that from a small team of committed people to a million subscribers to our product or content. And it takes a team to do that. You know, there are people that do do it. They are doing it, but you have to create a product that adds value in that sense. My forecast is one of two things, and I've said this before in the podcast, is I think AI and there's gonna be platforms that are very similar to Duolingo for mental health that people can access at a price point that's dramatically lower than what HR services are and or will be in the future. I forecast that in 20 years, HR clinicians will bill at $1,000 per hour and we will get that money, right? Insurance companies will have to come up to match it. or they won't have subscribers to their insurance or consumers for their insurance. And or, you know, you're targeting a very niche demographic that can afford to pay a thousand dollars an hour anywhere for a great product service or good. And they will do that because they value quality over a discount or deal. And that's never going to be everybody, but that's your targeting. But alternatively, because of the advances of AI and things like Duolingo, you're going to have application software that presents avatars. So if you see me on the YouTube screen right now, or if you can hear me on the podcast, it's gonna become the avatar of Vince that practices therapy and does therapy through a two dimensional screen, much like YouTube or telehealth, but that practices therapy better than Vince ever could. And my hypothesis in that story is that there is an ethical and sound way to get to that point, to increase profitability for the particular businesses that deliver this application. And to do it in a way that actually over delivers and creates a better service product or treatment for that end user. I think like anything else, there will be levels of care. It'll be the whole, what features do you need? And then the benefit list will be farmed on a look different. So that subscription model might be closer to a copay or less than a copay if we do it correctly, right? And then you pick the style of therapist and the language you want and the type of therapy. right? And that's having a known customer base or client. And then the backside is the person that seeks the human touch, right? The sentient being that wants the closeness and attention to detail in their speaking, their rhythms, the nuanced approaches of all the interconnected systems of life as we know it from physical down through financial and how they're interconnected. And I think that's kind of where we're going with all of this. And it's, It's something that's dynamic because it's not like there's going to ever be an indeed hiring post or something like that. Maybe once in a while we'll launch something if we have a gap or we need some interns or some work or some stuff that aligns with our profession practice. But man, it's exciting stuff because we're going to be doing it ethically every step of the way. And I never want somebody to be misled, right? Vince is the kind of person that drives every decision through three lenses and filter. right? And do we have fun, help people and do we make money doing it? And if we could do two of those three things, a handful of folks that work with me know that I'm always going to say yes to that, no matter how complex or difficult it might be. That's not part of the thinking or the process. I'm an all in kind of person and I think my life has produced those results when we're on the right track doing the right things. But it always depends on other people, right? Believing in that mission and you're bringing people along, the mission has to change and evolve and adapt. And I think You know, I think that's done when you're making ethical decisions, right? And full candor, right? If I can still $5 billion, I have to pay back $2.5 billion, but all of my friends and family come out of this rich and it's just my face and name on the cover of the paper. I will a hundred percent plea out to whatever I guess. I'm not going to take it to trial. I'll pay back the two and a half billion. I'll leave the country after whatever supervised release I have, and then I'll go live wherever else in peace and quiet with $2.5 billion. After I pay down whatever bureaucrat or corrupt individual I have to pay in that particular country, like in Israel, for example, they have a neighborhood designated for people like this that are international felons and criminals that have been committing all sorts of white collar and other various types of scams and cons against the government. So no, I would just join in them in terms of ethical decision making. But until that date and time, we're going to continue to look to deliver a wonderful product, good in service. And it's human, it's one-on-one, we hit a lot of base hits. It's we need our clients to be able to go home and have a healthy dinner, right? And it doesn't mean that they're sharing what happened in counseling or therapy, but they need to leave our sessions with our team delighted. That's the word I use because I believe if our clients leave an HR session or an HR training delighted, the things I'm hypothesizing, they will naturally occur when the time is right and appropriate. But don't doubt for one second, we are going to hundred percent actively seek ways to expand the mission. business and we're gonna look for partners to do that. We can't do it by ourselves. But we believe in the mission without a doubt. I certainly do. Never gonna lie, cheat or steal, right? And I think that's a good start is when you're buying a piece of the leadership, essentially, when you're making a bet with your capital or your resources, you you want a person that's going to make good ethical decisions. And for me, the cards are face up. It's not the Vince Kitts rich scheme. It's essentially I would like to collect 1 % of a trillion and I would like to do it with my friends and family. That's kind of where we're at. Cool. 1 % of a trillion. That's it. Not greedy. Just 1%.