Speaker 1: 0:00

Craig.

Speaker 2: 0:02

He's back. Open your mind, I'll be honest.

Speaker 1: 0:06

I'm a little scared. That was the first time I have ever opened the door to the dungeon and let him in.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Yeah, yeah. You now have to send that to seven people, or else he will kill you in a week.

Speaker 1: 0:21

Oh, my goodness, I forgot about those text threads and emails I used to go out like. You must send this to seven friends, otherwise your house will burn down.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Yeah, I don't know how anybody ever believed any of that stuff. But hey, what are you going to do, man?

Speaker 1: 0:35

that was like guerrilla marketing at its finest. Hey, so um the the topic today is how to call in sick to your own podcast. That is absolutely. I mean, yeah, we had a call out. This is weird. We've got a sub. This is the first time we have ever done an episode on this show without Bruce. It's Clark and Alex, alex, a totally different style, and I don't know how this is going to go. It could be mess. It could be awesome. Maybe we'll just fire him after this.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Yeah, I'm surprised he's not like lurking behind a bush, kind of looking to see how things are going. Uh, so, his uh. So for those that don't know, his, uh, bruce's voice is is struggling. He's on the struggle bus. As far as illness goes, he should be fine, no problems, within a couple of days, but for now he is in no condition to record a podcast, much less speak with anyone, and so that is why I'm here subbing in. So here we go. Uh oh, did you want to do the official intro?

Speaker 1: 1:38

I guess should we intro and I guess we're gonna just say our names. It's gonna sound weird, but we got to do it. It's the only right thing. It it's the only right thing to do. It's the only right thing to do. Welcome to Corporate Strategy. The podcast that comes in email it's Clark and Alex. That's not right. Something just fell wrong.

Speaker 2: 1:55

I just don't like it. It just doesn't feel right. It's very uneasy yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:00

And we opened the dungeon to Craig on our own, without Bruce's supervision. Yeah, this could be a complete nightmare, but I think it's going to be fine. I think it's going to be just fine, and we don't know that he'll get his voice back, so this could just be a new age for us, where it's no more Bruce.

Speaker 2: 2:16

I mean he shouldn't have crossed that ferry in the deep woods and so that's his own fault.

Speaker 1: 2:22

He should have shared our podcast seven times, otherwise he could have lost his voice. That was the text, all right. So, yeah, we are doing an unusual podcast today, but we're really excited about it. We have capitalist correspondent Alex Restrepo coming in to join us once again for the first time in 2025. First thing we have to do is a quick vibe check. How are you?

Speaker 2: 2:47

I am fantastic. Earlier this morning I went out and broken a new pickleball paddle and it is. Oh my gosh, it was so crisp the way it struck. True, it was a thing of beauty. I felt really really good out there, and then I had a pretty productive day at work, getting ready for what's going to be a busy day Well, sorry, busy week and so it's just been a really good day. Man, I feel great. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:10

I love to hear it. You are so dedicated to pickleball I did not realize you went before work on a Monday morning.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Sometimes, not every time, but yeah, I try to play three times a week if I can. It's just so much fun. It's really infectious. It gets in your blood. If you ever try it out, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:30

I'm totally going to have to hit you up one of these times because we don't live too far from each other and I want to try some pickleball. I've never played, so I don't know the euphoria of breaking in a new pickleball paddle, but I will soon.

Speaker 2: 3:40

It's all good. I'm happy to play you left-handed and or just bring it down to your level. I just enjoy playing. It doesn't have to be with anybody in particular.

Speaker 1: 3:51

So I'm down. Awesome, yeah, totally looking forward to that. Yeah, what is my vibe check? How am I feeling today? I actually had a similar day as you. I started off the day with bacon.

Speaker 2: 4:07

So I mean that kind of set, the whole vibe for the whole entire day.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Did you make like cookies or like scones? No, it was bacon and eggs, rye and bacon grease.

Speaker 2: 4:12

You ever done that before? Oh boy, have I Hell, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Your arteries are hating it, but it tasted so good.

Speaker 2: 4:19

So I started with that. That's a myth about the arteries. What? The arteries you think so it's big sugar man, that's what causes bad cholesterol.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Fair enough. I mean, I think, to quote a verb we used in our last podcast episode it just helps things fall right out. That's what baby goose does.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Oh, let's not revisit that one.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Yeah, it's a little too soon. Maybe a trigger warning for the people before we do that in the future. Anyways, productive day. I actually had this week fully planned out in terms of tasks that I need to do every day, in terms of everything on my calendar that needed to be in place, so I had the right priorities and I was able to get through all of my priorities today. So my task list is clear, which is like the best feeling in the world.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Okay, so my task list is clear, which is like the best feeling in the world. Oh, absolutely, it completely is. You always love that feeling of accomplishment, right and having a clean, fresh start from the next day. It's the best.

Speaker 1: 5:16

No debt from previous days or weeks Absolutely the best. Love it All. Right. So you need to tell me and tell the people your tips. Do you write everything down? Do you have a list going into the day or do you, big brain Alex, remember everything and you just know what you need to get through?

Speaker 2: 5:30

I am not the paragon to be talking about self-organization. I kind of even though I don't like jazz I kind of approach work like jazz, but I basically there was a. There was a friend of ours, a coworker and a friend this guy, brian, that I worked with at one point. He would say stay confused was his catchphrase, and I think he actually listens to this podcast, at least sometimes, and that stay confused mantra helps because you see a lot of people stress out and those people are not staying confused and so stay confused just basically means go loosey, goosey, go with the flow.

Speaker 2: 6:08

What I do is I try to do my best to make sure everything is properly on my calendar, including stuff that I'm doing for myself, right? So if I'm doing a task and there's actually multiple reasons to do that If you work for a big corporation, there's a decent chance they have AI checking in on your productivity and one of the things they do is they crawl your calendar and so highly recommend, if you're doing work, put it on your calendar so that it shows up as things you're doing in work. But for me it helps keep my day organized. It's just making sure I have something on my calendar for everything.

Speaker 1: 6:41

So your task list basically is your calendar and you prioritize your calendar to whatever needs to be at the top for that week. That's exactly correct. Yes, yeah, makes sense and that makes it really simple too. It's like if your calendar reflects your task list, then you should be good to go. I think where I always get hung up is the longer term projects that you know you need a few weeks of things happening at certain times. That's where the calendar kind of falls apart for me, because I lose track of where all the projects are. I've tried color coding, I've tried, you know, other ways and other task management systems, and I ended up using a tool called Monday to do all my organization for those bigger things, because it's just so hard to coordinate at my calendar.

Speaker 2: 7:22

This podcast brought to you by Monday productivity tool for those of you struggling to keep your projects in order.

Speaker 1: 7:31

We are not sponsored. That was a really good advertisement. Well, you said you had a bunch of stuff to talk about and I don't even know where this is going, just to be clear for everybody. So I'm going to just CYA myself right now to say I have no idea what we're going to talk about, but I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 2: 7:46

This is a throwback to about like a year ago. Like a Clark from about a year ago was like this, where you would show up and it would be a grab bag, right. Ooh, what am I going to walk into today, who knows? Right, I remember listening to those podcasts and that energy. It had a good vibe though the energy there, so hopefully this will be similar. No, the first thing I wanted to talk about was actually just a video I posted in the Discord about Arizona the company, the Arizona Tea Company Tea.

Speaker 2: 8:24

As the capitalist correspondent I just figured, it made sense to highlight a feel-good story for a change. There's so much doom and gloom in the capitalist corporal world out there that I thought if you come across a good story, you should share it. And so Arizona. So the company was founded in the early 90s by a dude in New York, my hometown. I'm originally from New York City, he was from Brooklyn, I was from Queens.

Speaker 1: 8:46

It's only the 90s.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Yeah, 92. Are you serious? That's crazy.

Speaker 1: 8:51

I literally thought this was a company that's at least 100 years old at this point.

Speaker 2: 8:55

No, no, arizona. Arizona actually came about because this dude saw the Snapple company doing well and thought, hey, I could do that. I could do tea right, but I'm going to do it a little different. And so his inspiration for the cans came from the fact that he had been a beer distributor. And so he saw Tallboy Cans of Beer and thought I could do that right. And so that was the difference.

Speaker 2: 9:18

But I'll give you an example, one of the snippets they do at the very beginning of the video and I posted this in podcast, books, documentaries, channel in our discord, um, which, as per usual, there'll be a way to get to the discord later on in the show, but, um, anyway, at the beginning of the video he talks about like there's an interview, right, and someone asks him hey, why, uh, why 99 cents? Why don't you charge more money? And his response is we're really successful, so we're good. And then, if you watch the rest of the video, that's the vibe throughout the whole thing. And I looked them up. I looked up a lot of the stats on this guy and he has a net worth of like $6 billion. He himself, individually, he's a $6 billion man. Now the price of Arizona has not gone up since its inception, that 99 cent can. And so, apparently, according to quote, unquote nominal inflation, which I'm always like, it's probably incorrect, because it seems like inflation is always calculated under what it really is in terms of the real world. But they're saying that that should be at least $2.50 by now if it kept up with inflation.

Speaker 2: 10:24

And so what he did was, number one, he worked on efficiencies behind the scenes, right, in terms of cutting the cost of production. And then, number two, he just didn't hire people. He didn't need to hire, right, like he didn't bloat the company unnecessarily. It's a privately held company. He doesn't have to report quarterly earnings or any of that stuff, right? He's only answerable to himself and his sons, who he did hire, but his sons are, like, active participants in the success of the company in terms of the work they're doing.

Speaker 2: 10:53

At one point someone asked him how big his marketing company was, because they seem to be doing pretty well in marketing, and he responded it's big. And the guy said well, how big? And he said it's about six foot eight, because he's six foot eight and he was the marketing department, right? So if I don't know if you got a chance to watch the video, but it's just the vibe of the whole thing. The guy just has the best attitude and it just shows you that you can have a company at billion dollar scale that can still be a force for good in the world. He also treats his employees really well, so it's all good.

Speaker 1: 11:25

I love the vibes that you're sharing. I mean, you can shame me, I have not watched it yet, but I will. I will shortly after this. I'm just way behind on the discord in the first two weeks of the new year. That's awesome, though it reminds me a lot of the like Costco hotdog thing of yeah, we don't care that it's a dollar 2525 and we're operating at a loss. It's about the principles of what we stand for and we're going to figure out how to make it work for our customers, which I love. I think that's such a good idea. So 6 billion, is it only Arizona? Is that his only brand?

Speaker 2: 11:58

Yeah Well, I mean to be fair. Arizona as a brand has expanded beyond just tea and I learned that watching the video. I didn't know, and this also is not an advertisement for Arizona. I just respect the, the, the way the dude carried himself throughout the entire video, like the, the concept of like I, I have a really good life. Why do I need more? And I just wish more people remembered that you know Right, Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Yeah, that's incredible. I love that and yeah, I remember there there being a lot of like yeah, is he even making money or the operating at a loss? So are they making money on those Arizona teas?

Speaker 2: 12:33

So yeah, actually they are. So even on the 99 cent cans they are making money, and the way they're making money. So they did they did a lot of clever stuff. One example is they were able to re-engineer the cans to use less aluminum, which saved them a ton of money. And so there's a ton of little examples like that so they've just grown in terms of efficiency and productivity. Instead of raising prices, they've increased how productive they are, and that's where the profits are coming from.

Speaker 1: 13:02

That's super cool. Yeah, I know, with just the rise of the cost of inflation it's like that alone and the cost of aluminum probably has made it really hard to make a profit. But if you focus on the efficiencies and you slim down your team to only the MVP group that you need, you can probably still operate at some sort of margin. Maybe it's slim, but still I mean that's incredible that they're making money on that at all, just given the cost of everything else. It's funny If you guys check out the Discord there is a link.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Just scroll down the link tree. As Alex referred to earlier, there's a lot of YouTube videos that you post from a YouTube channel called how Money Works and it's a great channel because they just published a new video about middlemen and how it's been like the golden age of middlemen for the last I don't even know how long I said like 30 years or something like that and technology has basically became the ultimate middleman between all these different companies and I think the concept that we're talking about here is like they probably are cutting out a lot of middlemen and going directly to the source and figured out those efficiencies where they're able to still operate the costs let's say the COGS, in a way that they can keep some sort of margin in the positive, which is super impressive.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Yep yeah. So just a feel-good story to start.

Speaker 2: 14:17

But, actually, it does dovetail into what is going to be the real topic, and it's actually a response to something that somebody asked for in the Discord, right? So those topic submittals that happen in the Discord a couple of weeks, like it may even be a couple of months. Now, back, jojo had asked for how to deal with golden handcuffs, and so this is actually, I think, a related topic in a sense. Right, but we were talking about knowing when enough is enough, right, and so that's kind of related, and I'll talk about that in a second. Given that we're introducing a term golden handcuffs it probably makes sense to explain what that concept is for folks that are either new to the corporal world or maybe other countries that are listening that may not use that term. So golden handcuffs is something that can happen to you. If you're really good at your job and you're really lucky, a company could value you Surprisingly. Yes, even in today's world, even in 2025, companies can identify true talent at times and choose to try to reward them in a way that helps keep them Right, and so that's the key component of this is that any golden handcuff mechanic, there's a time vesting aspect to it, and the whole purpose is to keep you working at the company that you're at, hopefully keep you happy, right? And so there are a couple of different vehicles that can be used for this.

Speaker 2: 15:47

I know of at least two that I've personally experienced and or seen from others. One is RSUs, which are restricted stock units, which will have different conditions, and so I've received RSUs at different times, and basically what it means is hey, we're going to give you a block of stock, however much it is, let's say it's a thousand shares of stock of a company, right that's? And in order to be able to offer rsus, the company has to be public or intending to go public, um, and so those rsus will be worth nothing if the company does not go public, um, although they can be worth something if the company gets acquired. But anyway, anyway, it's a whole mess, but regardless, to simplify it, the idea is here's a block of stocks, let's say a thousand, and it's going to invest over four years, and so if you stick around for one year, we're going to give you 250 shares, that's one quarter of the amount, and then there could be different vesting schedules after that.

Speaker 2: 16:44

As an example, I have some RSUs right now and they had a one-year cliff. And then it's three months Every quarter. Basically I get a small amount until it trues up to the vesting schedule that was set up. So in the example that I gave of 1,000 shares over four years, it could be yearly that it vests, or it could be quarterly or whatever, and they give you some subsection of 250 every quarter. Whatever 250 divided by four would be, that's how much they would give you. So those are different examples, but that's RSUs.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Mine's actually very similar, just to touch on my aspect of it, and actually it's interesting that you say this. Yeah, it's about retention. I have RSUs as well and I'm part of a public company, so luckily those RSUs are immediately valuable to me so I could immediately choose after those vests, I could immediately sell if I wanted to, and it's essentially just free money, and mine do distribute quarterly, I believe so I get a certain vesture over the next three years. I think that I have remaining for the subsequent amount, and so it works really well in that regard. I mean, to me what my company offers isn't huge, so it's not like massive enough for me to have golden handcuffs because of that.

Speaker 1: 17:55

But there's a lot of cases where if you're a startup and you're a private company, they are kind of just this magical.

Speaker 1: 18:04

This is really interesting with me. There's these magical stock options that you have that mean nothing because you're not publicly traded, but they're vested on the promise that once you sell or once the company goes public, you will then have access to all of those shares. And so it's how a lot of the bigger technology companies in the past have made millionaires out of the founding members because they have all this equity in the company via those shares and they're essentially able to cash those out at the time the company sells or goes public. Another example of that if you own your own company and then you sell your own company, they could pay you to stay on for a series of years. In one year they'll pay you out X amount. In two years they'll pay you out Y amount in order to retain your knowledge or onboard the new team or transition it to the new company. So there's a lot of ways of trying to retain the people for different purposes, at both public companies, private companies and also when you sell companies of your own.

Speaker 2: 19:00

And that was the second type. So, first of all, in terms of what you were talking about, about the promise of future value, I actually experienced that at my current company. My current company IPO'd in April of last year, oh nice. So I was hired on prior to the IPO. I'd been at the company for two and a half years by the time we IPO'd and so, yeah, so I got to experience that and it's pretty awesome. Yeah, I've heard that.

Speaker 1: 19:24

I, yeah, so I got to experience that and it's pretty awesome. Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard of like, after a company goes public, a lot of people quit that day and then drive off in Ferraris just because they made millions, potentially because of how long they've been in the company with that promise.

Speaker 2: 19:34

I have no desire to quit. I actually like my company quite a bit, but you could right yeah, absolutely. And then the second thing you said was the second type of handcuff that I was going to talk about, which is some sort of cash incentive. I've heard it called it depends, right, there's long-term cash incentive and then there'll be like short-term cash incentives. Would be like things like you said, like, let's say, you're being made redundant but they want you to train your replacements. They'll give you a pretty hefty bonus if you work through the end of your period, and so you're incentivized to basically stick it out until the end. So those are different types of cash incentives. So those are the two primary types of golden handcuffs, and again, not everybody ever gets access to these, but if you're fortunate enough to be a highly valued individual, then you're going to get access to these.

Speaker 2: 20:22

Right, I will say that my company, before the IPO I think everybody that got hired before the IPO had some amount of shares. I don't remember what the amount was or anything like that for everybody, but I think everybody had some. And so joining a pre-IPO company can be risky if that's part of what you're looking at as your compensation is the stock payout of what it will be when you go public. There's a risk there because your company may never go public. There's a chance of that, right. Plenty of companies fail Right To actually go public and plenty of companies go out of business, right. So that can happen, right. I'm not saying it will happen to the company you're working for. I'm just saying you have to weigh all of those risks together. I was lucky that for me the stock was just a cherry on top. I was happy with my compensation and it happened to be a really nice thing that happened to me, but I didn't necessarily need it, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:18

So, I would approach it that way.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Yeah, yeah, that's great, yeah, and to your point, just to say it another way, it's as you're getting offers, you might get promises from private companies of all this equity in the company or stock options and, like we're talking about here, they may mean nothing If the company goes under, if they go bankrupt, if they end up not selling, if they fail.

Speaker 1: 21:39

You don't want to necessarily hinge all of your decision making on those future options, which may or may not happen. It's a risk and I think that's a little bit of what you wanted to talk about with golden handcuffs is like everything in your decision making is kind of tying into that concept of you can get these golden handcuffs on you and you can feel locked in because of that. I mean, I can tell you even in my own company, to your point about valuing hard workers and people who bring value to the company. I do feel like my company's done a pretty great job recognizing me. From six years ago when I joined, to now, I've doubled the salary that I started at, and so I think that's pretty good recognition of not only have I gotten promoted, but they've also have out of band promotions that they've given me, raises that they've given me to try to retain me even with those stock options. So if your company really does value you, they will go out of their way to hopefully incentivize you to stay with these cash options which are preferable.

Speaker 2: 22:37

And that's potentially the third way of thinking of golden handcuffs. I don't think they're normally associated with it, but it's just high pay In general, you have a very high salary, but you're doing a job that you don't necessarily love. That could be a situation where you feel like you have these golden handcuffs, like I can't quit my job because I make too much money. Even though I don't like it, I have to stay here. That's another potential way you could feel like you have golden handcuffs.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Yeah, I'm actually curious. I had a question for you as I was thinking about this topic and you know my background and we've talked about on the show before, as well as Bruce's, and we didn't necessarily grow up with a lot of money and so when I went into tech and I got, like my first salary offer, it felt like I immediately had golden handcuffs, because I'm like I've never seen this amount of money before. You know, my parents have never had this amount of money before. Like it immediately felt like I need to stay here forever and keep on leaning into this because I'm never going to be make more money than this. This is incredible and so obviously, as I've gone through my career, it's only increased.

Speaker 1: 23:43

But there is that, let's say, fear that I have of like. Okay, I don't want to lose what I have now, even though I know because of comparables, because of talking to people like you and Bruce and other people on the show, there's other opportunities out there that could pay a lot more than where I'm at now, if that's what I value. So I was curious on your thoughts like how much does background do you think you know, lean into feeling like you have those golden handcuffs?

Speaker 2: 24:11

So I think it could be a lot, and so I will say that I'm similar. I grew up very poor, right Child of immigrants, all that stuff right and I think it could impact how I view work. I can tell you for a fact that in the early 2000s I was already in technology my mom would constantly give me the advice of sticking with the job I have, right, and because she was risk averse and what I can tell you is according to the data, my mom was wrong. According to the data, depending on which survey you look at, which year it is, someone who is more willing to job hop versus someone who is willing to stay at the same place for their entire career will earn roughly 50% more over the course of their career.

Speaker 2: 24:57

I will say this I was able once to double my pay within the same company, but just by changing roles. So I changed up to a pretty dramatic role and it wasn't even a promotion to like leadership. I wasn't like a c-level or anything like that, it was an individual contributor role, but it was just a far more highly valued contributor role as individual contributor role, and so I was able to double my money within the same company. I've also been able to double my money by bouncing between two different companies. So it really depends. So it can happen in either way. But I think for me, the bigger thing is not necessarily whether or not you stay with the company in terms of what your trajectory is going to be in terms of your earnings. It's whether or not you're willing to extend yourself. Chances are, if you get a promotion to a different role you're going to get more money.

Speaker 2: 25:45

Chances are Not always, but generally right, and so if you're within a company and you stay in the same role for 40 years, then, yeah, you're going to make less than someone who was willing to go out and try different things. Bottom line Now, apparently you could still make more, even if you're the person that's willing to take on different jobs by switching companies. But I can tell you that it's getting closer together. I'm going to put this in the corporate strategy part of the Discord. There's a chart showing that the pay difference between people who stay at the same company versus people who leave the company is tightening Interesting. Yeah, over the past year or so it started to tighten a lot, so here I'll put this chart in for you.

Speaker 1: 26:27

What do you think that is?

Speaker 2: 26:29

You think companies are just getting more Job market is changing.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Okay, job market is just changing. And now I think maybe companies are staying up to date with the market a little bit better, maybe they're calibrating if you will, to use a corporate term a little stronger.

Speaker 2: 26:42

Okay, yeah, yeah, I think that's what it is. I put it in if you want to take a look at it later. There is still a gap, but it's just not like the gap was at the height of the pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, it was high. Staying at your job was not a good idea. It's worth noting that I started at my new company in 2021, september of 2021. It looks like I made the right move, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:07

According to the chart. According to the chart, apparently, I timed the market really well. I got lucky. I got lucky. So here's what I'll say right, in terms of golden handcuffs, you got to look at it like this what do you want? And any financial advisor you talk to would tell you the same thing. What are your goals? Right, and so you have one life. That is the most precious thing you have access to, in my opinion, is time on this earth, and so what do you want to do with it? Now, there are, of course, hierarchy of needs. There's minimum viable amount of money you need to live right, and so I'm not advocating going out and being a starving artist. Unless that's your passion, and you have to do that, do it Right. But in general, what I would say is what do you really want out of life, and if you can make the bare minimum amount of money, you need to be able to meet your needs. Beyond that, everything else is secondary, and so if your goal is to be able to have a very luxurious retirement, then chances are you're going to have to keep grinding at whatever the highest paying job is available to you at every moment. But that's okay If that's your goal and that's what makes you happy, do that. Okay, if that's your goal and that's what makes you happy, do that. If that's not your goal, then I would start looking at what are my viable alternatives. Right, and so, as with everything, there's opportunity cost.

Speaker 2: 28:35

But I will say this I always refer to this book. There's a book that Bruce and I read in a book club. I've referred to it before, but it's the Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. I didn't say the full word, but it's by Thank you for giving that. Pg for the little ears. For the little ears yeah, all these kids listening to corporate strategy. But it's by a guy named Mark Manson and he has a really good analogy early in that book and that's basically talking about people wanting to be a rock star.

Speaker 2: 29:01

And what he says is you don't want to be a rock star. Um, and like wait a minute. Yeah, I do. Right, of course I want to be a rock star. He's like no, no, no you, what you want is this idealized version of a rock and roll life, but what you don't want to do is play the guitar until your fingers bleed. You don't want to sit there practicing in a garage six nights a week. You don't want to be playing dive bars and getting booed and nobody listening to your music for years on end until you finally get discovered, right, you don't want to put in the work because you don't actually love being a musician, you just think you want to be, have a rock star life. If you don't like for the musicians that do the work, the vast majority of them don't ever become big rock stars, much less someone, and so you're more likely to win the lotto, I would argue, and so I just think his argument there is that you don't want to be a rock star.

Speaker 2: 29:54

It's something that you need to think about and be realistic about. If your passion is going out and doing paintings, right, that's fine. But is that really what you want to do? Like? Is that what you want to do with your life more than anything? And it might be. It might be, if your answer to that question, after you really think about it and you slept on it, maybe you slept on it again, right? Is that? Yes, I have to be painting all the time or I will go crazy. Painting all the time or I will go crazy. Then you know what, figure out how to make it work.

Speaker 1: 30:29

But if that's not the answer, then figure out what your real viable alternatives are for what you really want to do with your life. I love that. Yeah, my wife actually loves this book. She always recommends it to so many people and I think it's a super interesting way to look at it and it's a realistic way.

Speaker 1: 30:42

It's as you look at whatever your goals are say, you want to make millions of dollars then you have to evaluate what I'm doing now. Is what I'm doing now going to get me there? And, realistically, if you're going to stay in a corporate job the rest of your life, potentially you'll have a million or more in your retirement one day, depending on your salary. So sure, that can get you there, but you're not going to be able to enjoy those things until you get to that point, and then you're going to be old and you don't know if that's going to actually be. So be what you want in that idealized way.

Speaker 1: 31:11

And so I think you have to think about what do I actually want for that and visualize it, really visualize it for how you want to feel, what you want it to be. And then, to your point, look at your current situation and say, okay, what do I have to do differently now to actually get there? And you do have to fall in love with the process, because it's not going to happen overnight and depending whatever your goal is, I mean maybe it could happen overnight if you win the lotto, for example. If you're like I want to win the lottery, you're going to have to play a lot in order to win the lottery and potentially take a lot of risk Every single paycheck, dump it all into it. Maybe you'll hit the lotto one day, but if you're not playing the lottery, long story short is you're never going to win it.

Speaker 2: 31:50

And if you're not investing enough I have to interrupt. This is not financial advice by Clark Cheddar Moop. I want to be clear. This is not financial advice. Please understand that. Okay, the financial advice please understand that.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Okay, you can continue. Sorry, take your last paycheck and go dump it in the lottery. Now You'll win the lottery, I promise Is that how you get canceled on a podcast.

Speaker 2: 32:12

A hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Yes, yeah, that's how you get canceled. Okay, don't actually do that. I agree, please do not do that. Don't bankrupt your family.

Speaker 2: 32:17

But you're right, though, so you do have to love the work. Right, you got to love the process, and if you don't, then you're going to have a bad time. Right, you're gonna have to figure. It's like you're French frying when you're supposed to pizza. You know you're gonna have a bad time, so you want to make sure that you're cognizant of that.

Speaker 2: 32:31

Now, having said that, right, let's say you either a determine that I need more money just to live, or B I, you know you figure out that I do want to have a luxurious retirement and I want to have money to go on vacation this year as opposed to waiting until retirement Cool. Now your question is how do I maximize the amount of money I make? Golden handcuffs can seem like the best way to make the most money, and maybe it is. Maybe. I will give you an example.

Speaker 2: 33:00

We had a friend of ours that we know that went to work for a tech company. He worked with us at a different tech company, went to work at another tech company and they gave him some stock when he started. They gave him about $100,000 worth of stock as RSUs, like we talked about earlier restricted stock units. Turns out the company did really well and those RSUs ended up being worth eight times as much as when he got hired, and they gave him more RSUs a few years later, and so he had a ridiculous package at that point and he truly felt handcuffed, like he cannot leave because there's just way too much money. And he has a family, he's got kids. He wants to make sure his kids can go to college. He's able to pay for everything. He has a family. He's got kids. He wants to make sure his kids can go to college. He's able to pay for everything.

Speaker 2: 33:52

So there is a moment where maybe, if it's stock-based golden handcuffs and the stock does really well, it can be really difficult, right, although there is a tipping point even there, in that direction also. I'll give you an example NVIDIA has recently gone on a tear. If you don't know, nvidia makes graphics cards, or what used to be specifically graphics cards. They're now just generalized as GPUs, and the reason is because, although they were initially made for computer graphics, turns out they're really good for AI and so they've been powering the AI boom, and so NVIDIA's stock has gone up ridiculously. I don't even know what the percent is, but it is a lot. At any rate, one in two NVIDIA employees is a millionaire, and I think it's something like one in five has a net worth of over 25 million now.

Speaker 2: 34:31

And I'm talking about all employees across the board, so just imagine that.

Speaker 1: 34:36

That is crazy, that is nuts. Yeah yeah, exactly to your point. It's like those people have to feel handcuffed, like this is so much money, why are you changing money?

Speaker 2: 34:47

So whatever restricted stock units are still on the clock. If they quit, they're leaving that on the table, right, like they're walking away from that much money and it's not exactly guaranteed money because you can get fired. If you get fired, right, you don't have access to those RSUs anymore, right? So it's a risk to stay, potentially because you could still get fired or something like that, you know, laid off, whatever. It is right. But every time you're looking at the equation of doing something else that is now part of the equation, the calculation. That's tough, right. But here's what I'll say, right, and that's that this is advice I gave to somebody recently. They didn't necessarily have a lot of RSUs on the line. They were just looking at what was the best move for their career, because they got an offer from another company and their company they're at right now had just gone through a lot of changes, but the changes, from their perspective, could be good. They didn't know, right, so they were on the fence. This is what I told them.

Speaker 2: 35:41

Right, is that where you are right now, you're betting on that company to figure out those major changes. So staying is betting on the company to do well, leaving into this new role where you're going to be in a more dynamic position. You're going to be in the driver's seat. More is betting on yourself.

Speaker 2: 35:56

So staying with the existing company, betting on that company to do well, going and exploring the market and doing something else potentially, is betting on yourself, and I would argue that if you're the type of person that is confident they're going to do well in the corporate world, I would recommend betting on yourself every chance you get. That doesn't mean leave the company you're at, but it does mean make sure that you know what your options are so that when it comes time for reviews, for promotions, for whatever, you understand what your value is right and you can have that conversation confidently without being a jerk. I'm not talking about being a jerk to anybody. In fact, I don't recommend burning bridges, really anywhere but be able to confidently explore the labor market, know your value and then come back and have that conversation efficiently, even if you end up staying.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Yeah, absolutely, you know it's interesting, absolutely it's interesting. This book, the Subtle Art of Not Giving an F, it kind of indicates and I haven't read in a long time so you might have to remind me that you take emotion out of the equation. And let's face it, humans are emotional beings and so, as I think about this as a people leader, you know, I tell my employees all the time like, hey, if you're not happy here, tell me. And if truly we can't solve whatever, whatever it is it's not making you happy. You know the thing you're working on, the amount of money you're making, whatever it is, then I'll support you and recommend you to go elsewhere because it's better for you.

Speaker 1: 37:22

And I tell my employees that all the time, and it always gives them a shock because they're like, so you're not saying you're going to like beg to keep me and you know, please don't leave. I'm like no, because I want the best for you and I believe if we're doing important work and if we're doing work that I believe in, that you'll want to stay for those reasons, as long as we can compensate you right and, you know, put you on the right project, give you the right work-life balance, whatever it is that you value, and so I'm curious from you know your perspective of the book like how do you keep emotion in it while also being able to make, I guess, pragmatic decisions that are not fueled by emotion?

Speaker 2: 37:56

So so, to be fair, the book like if, if, if, I mean I don't want to spoil it, but I guess it doesn't matter. It's like if, if, if, I mean I don't want to spoil it, but I guess it doesn't matter. It's a self-help book, right? So ultimately, there's no spoilers. Reading it again is only going to help you sharpen this off, right, so there's no spoilers. The this the book is titled the subtle art of not giving an f, but, realistically, it's the subtle art of caring about what matters. That's actually what the real moral of the book is, and so it isn't necessarily to delete emotion. It's to make sure that anytime you're engaging in a decision process for anything, either for yourself or for others, to make sure you understand what's important and you work backwards from that, right. And so, to that end, right? I would argue that what you're doing in that conversation with your employees and what your employees should be doing in that conversation with you is both of you should be coming to an agreement about what's the best path forward, right? And what that's going to do is it's going to ensure that the team that you're running is productive, because if one person stays and they're unhappy, that's worse than them leaving and being happy somewhere else. So even if you're talking about just from a selfish point of view and, by the way, I agree with you as a human that you're doing the right thing as just a good human, so I love it when things can align but even if you're looking at purely as a cold-blooded evil capitalist, it's the right thing to do right, and this is where bad leaders don't. This is where bad leaders get in their own way Right. I'll give you one quick example. I heard a good story a few months back. I was in some leadership training and they mentioned that A players hire A players, b players hire C players, and, and so that realization like I don't know why. I'd never put that together in such a succinct way. But think about it. People who are B players are probably insecure about their job, about their position, about who they are. What they want to do is they want to hire people they can keep under their thumb so they can try to make themselves look better. But A players are confident, they're doing the right things, they're making the right moves and they want to hire people that are going to get promoted, because that's a team overall that's going to do. Well, if the team sees that their peers are getting promoted, they're going to continue to be happy at where they are because they think I can do the same, and that's a good thing, right. Additionally, a players recognize that if you hire someone, you cultivate them, you help nurture them and they get promoted. You now have a peer that is an ally also a good thing, right, and so it's a win all around. And, by the way, if you happen to be a shareholder because maybe you're lucky enough to have some golden handcuffs hiring and developing more A players in your company is going to enrich you, literally, because the stock price is going to go up, because your company is more productive. So this is a virtuous cycle of winning by hiring good people, but insecure people hire people who they view as less than themselves on purpose, right.

Speaker 2: 41:05

And so what you described is you being an A player, and I'm not here to give you a pat on the back because you know you probably already know you're doing the right thing, but I'm just calling out the mechanics of it, right, Because that was, I guess, ultimately your question, right, about how you bring that in. Yeah, and you just have to look at what is the optimal play here? And the optimal play is if someone's unhappy, let's dissect that and figure out how to make them happy within the constraints of what is available. And what I mean by that is sometimes you can't give them. Let's say they deserve a $40,000 a year raise, but you just don't have the budget to give it to them.

Speaker 2: 41:40

Okay, what else can we do? And if the answer is we can't do anything, then yeah, how can I help you and I'm not trying to kick you out, I don't want you to leave, I actually like you on our team but how can I help you make the next step to where you can get what you deserve, because unfortunately, I can't give it to you? Here Again, I'm not kicking you out, I'm not threatening to fire None of that. In fact, quite the opposite. I'd love to keep you. I just I know I can't give you that money, but I'm willing to help work with you and get you the skills you need to get to that next level somewhere else, if that's what it takes.

Speaker 1: 42:11

Yeah, exactly, and it's so funny. A couple of years ago I had an employee she was a rock star and that's exactly what happened. I'm like I can't get you the money you want, and I know that's what you want and she ended up getting another job. Funny enough, they were private, they went public. She got a nice little payout worked out for everybody and she's really, really happy. So I think to your point, you know that's that's exactly the type of culture you want to create and the opportunity cost of staying versus going and looking at what you value.

Speaker 1: 42:37

And you know my my last kind of two thoughts. You know I mentioned this person before on the podcast, but a buddy of mine, you know, as we look at his CAC, his compensation is the thing he cares about. He cares about, you know he wants to retire in 10 years, so he's like I need to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, so I can just not have to work for the remainder of my life, and so he's not rude in any way, but he's very specific and, I guess, intentional about the way he works, that he's not going to do something if it's not going to lead him to more money, meaning a promotion, meaning a raise, meaning a sales target. If it's a, hey, someone needs to update the wiki. So our team onboarding is going to be better. He typically opts out because he's like I could spend that time on a sales call instead. And so to your point about the longer term vision. Sure does it help the company if you onboard people really well and you have a good process? Sure, but he's probably not going to stick around at that company more than two years because he knows he can get a raise somewhere else to ultimately get more money. So it's kind of funny to your point.

Speaker 1: 43:40

It's evaluating what are your goals. It does go back to that. You know. First, principles, what are you trying to achieve in life, what do you value, and then making sure what you're doing now is actually in line with that. I think the last note that is just on top of my mind is to say you have to evaluate your situation to exactly what you said earlier, alex.

Speaker 1: 44:00

It's what are my constraints around me, that I'm working with?

Speaker 1: 44:04

I have a mortgage, I have a family, I have responsibilities, I need to take care of Some things you can't sacrifice unless you're okay, potentially damaging those things, and so you need to make sure whatever plan you put together when you're determining whether the golden handcuffs are real and you need to stay, you know supports, whatever your end goals are, and you can't just go and make the jump to a struggling musician for the next 10 years if you need to pay bills and you know your constraints and you're like that's just not going to work for my lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 44:34

So I think to your point about the book and some of the I guess, overall themes is evaluate your current situation, understand if you can truly be a rock star and then work backwards from there and realize the sacrifices or the opportunity cost of doing the things that would take to be a rock star and then work backwards from there and realize the sacrifices or the opportunity cost of doing the things that would take to be a rock star are not going to work with my lifestyle. So now I can just move away from what I was thinking and what I idealized to a more realistic goal which in the end will make you happier anyway.

Speaker 2: 45:08

Any last notes no, I completely agree. I think you summed itmed it up. So yeah, begin with the end in mind and figure out what you can do to get there yeah and maybe it's not viable right now. The other. The last thing I would say is just, if it's not value available to you right now, that's okay. Re-evaluate in the future. You should check in with yourself on a regular basis, right, so that evaluation process isn't one and done. Keep reevaluating what your options are, more or less constantly, if you can.

Speaker 1: 45:35

Yeah absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:36

And just to give a personal anecdote too, is you know, for me, coming from my background, the golden handcuffs were real for a while.

Speaker 1: 45:43

But when I took that step back a few years ago and I looked at what I want to do eventually I would love to start my own company and work for myself, and I think with that I know now's not the time my wife and I sat down and talked about it and there's certain financial goals that we want to hit in order to kind of feel that freedom or take that risk, if you will.

Speaker 1: 46:01

So we've evaluated the opportunity cost of staying where we are for a little while, hitting those financial goals and then being willing to take a risk. But we're on the same page together about what that looks like, what the timeline looks like, and so it makes it easier to go through your day-to-day knowing I have a plan. I know when this is going to happen Situations could change, but if things remain static, this is going to be the goal to get to where I want to go. And so I think you realistically have to do that if you have a partner, plan with your partner and make sure that you guys are on the same page for whatever you're kind of planning, if it does impact your lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 46:35

Smart. One reason you may want to jump ship is because of all the sludge at work. It happens to be something of a meme in the what Do you Meme channel, if you want to go over it.

Speaker 1: 46:48

Oh boy. Well, the question is do you want to do it? Do I throw this on you because you're the guest, or do you want me to do it?

Speaker 2: 46:55

Uh, I don't care either way.

Speaker 1: 46:56

All right, I want to hear you do it, because you're so articulate. I would love to hear your rendition of this. What do you mean? We explain visual memes in a voice articulated format. It's great podcast material.

Speaker 2: 47:08

So, alex, take us, take us away yeah, so this meme happens to be in the form of a of a gif, and I want to clarify it is graphics, it is not graphics. So, bruce, you were 100 incorrect. It is gif and always has been. But anyway, it's a gift, it's animated and in this instance, there appears to be a superhero, and this superhero is feeling pangs of betrayal as he floats in a green river of sludge, he laments his sorry state. He says my eyes, the goggles do nothing, and realistically, I feel like this is a commentary on life. It says my eyes, the goggles do nothing, and realistically, I feel like this is a commentary on life. This is coming from a very nihilistic individual indicating that, it's true, in life, the goggles do nothing, although I think the gif actually says nogles.

Speaker 1: 48:07

I think it says nogles.

Speaker 2: 48:10

Yeah, which it's supposed to be goggles, but I think this particular gift says goggles, but it was a commentary on the sludge of corpo life and uh, I, I personally am here for it. Well done, individual contributor awesome.

Speaker 1: 48:21

Well done to you for doing that so well and, yeah, individual contributor, for submitting your meme, as always. You can always jump into our discord and submit your memes too if you want to hear us explain them. And guess what? We're going to make Bruce do it when he comes back because he missed an episode. So we have to punish him. So he is going to be next up and we've got to give him some really good ones for him to run through and explain with his mouth parts. Don't want to miss it.

Speaker 1: 48:47

Other than that, I, we, we hit it all. We did a. What do you mean? We have episodes, we had news, we had awesome stories, we had awesome dialogue, we had our guest on. This was a banger of an episode. So thank you, alex, for coming on and thank you everybody who's listening. Please share us. Jump into that link tree just by scrolling down your podcast player of choice and clicking the link. You can go to our website to submit a topic. You can one click to join the discord, where you can play things like what do you mean, where you can see the things that Alex posted, like the video on Arizona tea or the graph bringing the hey job hopping versus staying current company compensation together. You can only do that in the discord, so click that link, join the discord. We've got people joining all the time. Conversation's great and share. That's. The biggest thing you can do for us is share Anything else. Alex, any last words?

Speaker 2: 49:37

I think you summed it up well and I appreciate it being here. Thanks, clark.

Speaker 1: 49:48

Absolutely All right. Everybody that wraps up this episode and what's the right corporatism that we can use right?

Speaker 2: 49:53

here Bruce is way better at this Until the fat lady sings.

Speaker 1: 49:55

We'll see you next time You're on mute. You're on mute, see you. This is awkward when bruce isn't here, everything just falls apart. I can't kick craig out. Oh wait, wait, one of us can do it all. Right, this is the real goodbye, bye.