SPEAKER_04: 0:01

Holy Toledo. Holy San Antonio. Holy Baltimore.

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

Holy Seattle. Shout outs. Shout outs Chicago. Illinois. 60652. Guantanamo bay. Let's not shout out Guantanamo Bay. Let's not maybe not. Maybe not that much. Shout outs shout-outs most places, not Guantanamo Bay. Let's not do that one. Let's not do shout outs. Oh, where's another place where they just tortured people just you know without end uh illegally?

SPEAKER_04: 0:42

Ooh, what's another one? You know, you know what I learned the other day? Random rant for you. Uh, and I want you to try it. Because you're really good with accents. And I hope this doesn't get you canceled, but I it may, it may.

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

You're trying to?

SPEAKER_04: 0:54

If you say disqualification in a Jamaican accent, I heard that the other day, and it's hilarious. I'm not gonna I could do it. I could do it. I could do it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

Not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08

Listen, we're respectful here, we're not gonna do it. But I'm just saying, if you want to try it, I think you should try it because it's pretty awesome. Pause the pod right now and try it for yourself. Especially if you're in your car. I really want you to put some gumption in it. You know, I want you to like really dig deep down, really think about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

Let it yell, let it out. The the accents I'm allowed to do are Italiano. Uh, I can do uh I can do Irish because I do have family that hails from the Emerald Isle, but uh I can also do like any of the American accents because I am also an American, but everything outside of that scope, not allowed. Even though like I was trained on them at one point in my my life, and I can do a lot of accents. I just can't. Can't it's not legal.

SPEAKER_04: 1:54

My wife has banned me. My wife has banned me regardless of heritage and lineage of doing any any accent because I'm so bad. Every single time she says like this will get you canceled, like it's so bad you're not allowed to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

Well, I know that mine are not the best, but what what's important is the gumption, right? When I'm like, yo, Italiano, let's go. It's me, Mario. You know, like it's really it's terrible, actually. Like, no Italian talks that way, but uh, you know, it's the passion, it's the passion I'm putting into it that really drives it to its it's fun.

SPEAKER_04: 2:29

See, in your last name, you can just pull the last name card. My last name. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

I actually fun fact, fun fact for you and no one else, Clark. The uh when I introduce myself on webinars, zooms, and things, like actual production recordings, I'll say my last name and I'll I'll do the pinched hand and I'll do it super Mario style. No, it's a laugh every time, every time, guaranteed laugh. Like, easiest laugh I can ever get. It's my one joke I can go back to. It works, works like a charm. And then I'll like I'll make I'll make people do it. I'll be like, oh yeah, you try. Try doing it.

SPEAKER_04: 3:05

You know, you you'll do it better if you pinch your hand and shake it a little bit, and they'll nobody can see you right now except for me, but I love that you're just shaking it. You're pinching and shaking.

SPEAKER_01: 3:13

Just look at it. When you do this, when you do this and you say my my first and last name, it just it comes out the right way. It's a fact.

SPEAKER_04: 3:23

Just a fact. That's really the key. Like people don't understand. It's like when you move your hands with it, that actually is how you get the proper intonation to do the accent. Yes. I've always been a hand talker, and that's my Italian heritage at play, really.

SPEAKER_05: 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:36

Did you turn off the the Apple reactions? Because I didn't see any fireworks when you just did that. Well, I think I was quick.

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

I was really quick with the and you gotta be. When you're talking with your hands, you gotta be quick because otherwise if you keep it too long, people think like something's wrong with you, you're a robot.

SPEAKER_04: 3:54

I think Apple's just broken.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

I'm really trying. Like I'm just throwing up you gotta hold it. It takes like it's a solid three seconds to register. Oh, you're right. Wow. Yeah, I'm just a rookie now. How do you do the fireworks thing?

SPEAKER_04: 4:05

Is it like this?

SPEAKER_01: 4:06

Uh I think it's I think fireworks, no, that's confetti. I think confetti, okay. We got some uh yeah, is it this one? That's balloons. This is balloons. Okay, one piece signs balloons. That's kind of fun. The rave is two horns. Oh, I think it's fireworks' double thumbs up. Yeah, fireworks. Oh, that's good. For all you Apple users out there, if you have your reactions turned on on your iPhone, laptop, whatever that has a camera hooked up to it, you can you can do gestures, which are great for when you're having serious conversations with your your coworkers and it accidentally triggers. Let me tell you. Never count to three during a serious conversation on camera during a meeting, because when you do two and you hold it up for a second, balloons start flying up on the screen. It's like number two, if you don't change your behavior and attitude, we're gonna have to put you on a pip. And I'm sorry the balloons are flying on the screen right now. Oh my goodness, that would be so bad. Like if your lane off it's actually happening off. Like it is not laying someone off, but like I've had a very serious conversation with folks and like they trigger, and I'm like, oh my gosh, oh disable things. But then I kind of also enjoy it. Like I also, you know, I've never been I've never been so mad that I wouldn't want the emojis to trigger, you know, like it's kind of fun, kind of adds.

SPEAKER_04: 5:37

As long as there's nothing like as long as there's nothing like awkward about it, like you forgot my birthday, and then you do the balloon thing right in front of you, like, oh, ah, too soon. Too soon. No, no, no. It's great. That's great.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

That's what you want to happen. Hey, you know what else you want to happen? What's that? Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast that could have been an email. I'm Bruce.

SPEAKER_04: 5:58

And I'm Clark.

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Hey Clark.

SPEAKER_04: 6:01

Hi Moon. Uh Bob Check, uh, update on the back scenario. I'll give you my inner reserve status. Not good. Not good. Right side? Right side is good, right side is good, left side still like you know when you've injured something and it just doesn't feel right.

unknown: 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 6:18

You know what I'm talking about. Like I know what you're talking about. It's not always in pain, but like it just doesn't feel right. And like you do things and you're just like, ooh, ooh, it's tweaking a little bit. Something's not right. I think I'm gonna have to get an MRI. I think that's it's it's time just to see. I mean, it's been six weeks of doing physical therapy and rehab, and my right side feels good. Like I've been doing it every day, religious, hard workouts just to try to get my core and my back right, my back core right. Yeah, it's still left side, not good. So I think it damaged something. Yeah. Um I don't even know. They're gonna put me in a backpack. That just makes me sad. Yeah. Not good for a back race? I I don't know. I mean, what do you do in a scenario? Are you gonna have to do surgery? I I don't know. How do you fix it?

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

I don't know. I am I mean back is like I mean, there's a reason neurosurgeons work on the back, right? Like, you gotta be some kind of smart next level person to do that. So I mean, I'm just gonna send all of the good vibes that I have left to you so that it is easy. There's not many, there's not many good vibes, but I'm sending you what I got, right?

SPEAKER_04: 7:21

Like actually, I don't know if you can because vibe checking you right before we talked about it. My deficit, I'm I'm worried that you're in the you're in the negative, you're in the red.

SPEAKER_01: 7:29

And if I can I've been in the negative for like six months now, yeah. That's not new. That's not new. Yeah, I can't take vibes that I generate.

SPEAKER_04: 7:38

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. I think I deserve some of those residual positive vibes. At this point, I've been so uh deficit of them, and I've been craving them. Like I need them. I need them.

SPEAKER_01: 7:48

I'll occasionally like look down at my arm and like oh, there's like the like a little vibe slime. I'll just like wipe it off and lick it because that's all I've got left. Really. That's it. Just need a just a little taste. You just need a little taste of the vibe.

SPEAKER_03: 8:03

Oh, that's how vibes used to be. I used I used to be happy in the old days.

SPEAKER_01: 8:10

What is your vibe? Yeah, I'm just saying, I'm surviving. Yeah, I'm gonna get through this. That's that's my vibe right now, is I'm gonna get through this. I feel like I feel like there are lights at the end of the very dark tunnel I've been in for a long time. Uh, thank you for doing the uh fireworks reaction emoji, Clark. I I'm gonna survive. And uh I think I think the the thought of surviving has improved my vibes a little bit. I feel good. I still have a little bit of a cough, believe it or not. A month and a half later, it's like it will come back, it will just creep up on me, which is crazy. But uh, all in all, you know what? I'm alive, I'm breathing air, I drink water occasionally, uh, a meal will pass my lips on occasion, my my dry parched lips. And uh, you know, I'm gonna survive. I'm going to survive.

SPEAKER_04: 9:04

I'm happy. I was really worried. I was really worried we're gonna have to put you on long-term injured reserve, and I was gonna have to call up some friends to do this podcast. I want to. I want to. Can you put me on that? Is that do I get paid? Paid leave? It's uh leave without pay. I'm sorry to it's like uh maybe it's it's probably closer to FMLA. Oh, yeah, so maybe you don't want that. No, no, no. I don't think that's all we can offer. I I want to note at this point in time, December 7th, 2025, uh the Corpus Strategy Group uh can't offer a long-term paid disability.

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

Yeah, not shocked given the state of this podcast, really just not shocked at all about any of that. But uh, you know what? I'll I'll soldier through and then one day I'll quit and I'll be happy. I'll be a happy boy. I'll be happy.

SPEAKER_04: 9:51

See, there you go. Stop. If I do this, my wife hears that, she's gonna yell at me. I can't do it. I can't do it. I gotta I gotta keep it to myself. You almost made me do it. You almost got me into it.

SPEAKER_02: 10:01

You'll be so happy. You'll be like a little garlic nut hanging out in my palm of my hand. Oh, you'll be so happy.

SPEAKER_05: 10:07

You know what I want to talk about.

SPEAKER_02: 10:09

A little bit of spaghetti, a little bit of spaghetti. Put a little bit of gravy on a spaghetti, a little bit of garlic on a spaghetti, a little bit of spaghetti. The gravy on a spaghetti?

SPEAKER_00: 10:25

Don't put gravy on my spaghetti, Mario. That is what the Italians call sauce. You don't call it sauce, you don't call it sauce, you call it gravy. I thought this was America. Yeah. So did I, bud. So did I.

SPEAKER_04: 10:43

You know what I want to talk about? I had uh I had an interesting thing happen. I texted you about this, so you already know. But for all of our listeners, things out there with AI are getting out of control. It's gonna burst. You know, we we've had it's it's just getting to a point where I gotta talk about it because I texted Bruce earlier this week. I was like, hey, is there a chance like our podcast is just blowing up? Like, did we just somehow like hit the jackpot? We get put out an episode that hit all the trending stuff, and it's just blown up because in one day I got 12 emails asking for guests to come on this show. I get a few here and there. We've entertained like one or two, and we're like, oh, yeah, that's not a good fit. Like, this is this is weird, this is just gonna be awkward if and this person's just gonna do it for an endorsement. Like, we want people to come on the show that are gonna genuinely bring value. So we haven't like entertained any of these requests. So I'll get a couple a month, handful. And then one day I got 12. And I was like, we've got to be trending or something because like why is that happening? And it messaged Bruce is like, nope, pretty steady. I'm like, gosh dang it, AI. Somebody's AI and listening to podcasts and finding topics and sending us notes based on their AI automation sequences. Stop it, stop it now. Stop it, bots.

SPEAKER_01: 12:03

We were um, so our topic today we'll get into in a minute, but it came from one of our new Discord members who just joined recently. And we were talking in one of the channels specifically about the the memory crisis that's about to happen. So I don't know how how plugged you in or plugged in you are on this, but because of AI and specifically how much of a drain it is on RAM, uh SSDs, uh uh GDR RAM, DDR RAM, it's all about to it, it's not about to. It is through the roof, right? Like 16 gigs of RAM. How much does that cost, Clark? How much does 16 gigs of RAM cost? Oh, these days. I mean how much did it cost the last time you bought RAM? If you ever bought RAM, how much does it cost? I have bought a RAM. I don't know, it was like 80 bucks. Is that right? Okay, okay. So 80 bucks. That's actually like really close to what it, you know, it was if you were just buying a not, you know, gaming LED glow in the dark RAM. You're just getting, you know, it's a basic RAM for your laptop, for your computer, what have you. 16 gigs, 80 bucks. That's that's a fair, maybe a little cheap. That's on the cheap side, but you can find it, right? Same with SSDs.

SPEAKER_04: 13:08

Well, keep in mind, I also I haven't bought RAM in, I don't even know, maybe eight years. It'd been a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 13:15

Sure. Sure. So 16 gigs of RAM in the age of AI. Take a guess.

SPEAKER_04: 13:23

Take a guess. I don't even want to know. What are we talking? Any any end? I'm just gonna give it gamer rear 16 gigs. I'm gonna give a fair estimate. If I bought cheap stuff, it was like 80 bucks. I want to double it, but then want to add like 50 percent. So maybe like 200? Is that crazy? 450. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

Are you serious? So, and there's there's downstream impacts of this. Do it. Like PC gaming has already become sort of astronomically expensive because NVIDIA shift their focused AI, like AI and crypto, crypto mining specifically, just became so demand for GPUs. The the demand outmet the supply, so the costs went up, and they were selling more to businesses and mining organizations versus the consumer. So the consumer gets shafted, and the consumer, what first card I ever bought, first graphics card I ever bought, was a 580, 580, DTX, NVIDIA. That was a that was a top-of-the-line card in the day. It cost me 500 bucks. I bought that card to play Skyrim, right? Like, it's not cheap at all for 2011. 500 is it's expensive. Now, the same level of card today, if you want to get one,$1,400. So even adjusting for inflation, like that is well past, but that's just because of the demand plus mining. All of those cards have GDDR memory in them, which is about to skyrocket. So not only is the card already expensive, but we're talking this card could cost$2,400 next year or in the next, like, you know, the next six months. RAM going up, SSDs going up. This is about to cripple the cell phone market, the personal computer market, game consoles, enthusiast PC builds, like AI and crypto are literally ruining everything that you know a lot of nerds out there love and they're not doing anything about it. So now organizations are leaving the market because they're like, I can't, I'm a consumer organization. I can't, I can't give up with these prices. It's going things are going to get really bad. This is this is the feeling I'm having right now. Is I've never in my life seen such astronomical inflation and growth and just cost of gas, cost of water, cost of eggs. Like every single thing is expensive. But when you start to see growth like that, everything goes with it. And what I think will end up happening, my prediction that I'm making right now, AI is not going to exist in 10 years. I think AI will end up killing itself uh completely because it will become so cost-prohibitedly expensive that they'll end up shuttering things like chat GPT for common use. And we take the generative technology and mostly just use it internally on internal servers uh on smaller data sets versus continuing to pilfer and steal the entire internet to feed these disgustingly large chatbots that people don't even use properly. I think the the the amount they're generating, it's all funny money, it's all investment money. But like who's actually paying for chat GPT, right? Like, do you think the subscriber base covers the the the cost of operation? They're gonna start adding ads into it too, right? Like, so hey, I'm hungry. Wouldn't you like a Taco Bell? Like it it is going to destroy itself, and I cannot wait for that to happen because I want life to go back to the way it was before AI existed.

SPEAKER_04: 16:58

Yeah. When I think about this, like historically, right now it is companies trying to position themselves as the market leader. And so it doesn't matter how much money you invest, like billions will be invested into this, and it will all be free because they want to position themselves as the market leader and absolutely drain every other player out there so they can come out ahead. That that's what's happening in the market, right? So like the big firms are starting to step in, Google, Apple, and they want to be the market leaders and they want to maintain that position in AI. So they're gonna bleed everyone else dry with what they're doing because they have the resources to do it. Yeah, and open AI is doing that right now, right? It's crazy, the free tiers, but that never lasts. You and I know this because of the historical because of how we alone what we've been living in since like the mobile phone race and everything like that. Like, this doesn't last. All these players will disappear, and you'll have a couple emergent leaders, and they will be the ones who are able to have the vast amount of resources to drain everyone out, and then we'll start to see the the freemium come in, where it's ads, paywalls, things like that, where everything that we had for free, you now have to pay for because it can no longer afford itself. And it is crazy to think about the resources that AI needs in order to provide what it's doing right now, and that demand is just going to continue going up. And right now, that money is largely coming from enterprise customers. Like my company even has bought Chat GPT licenses, and the amount that we pay for that is insane. It's insane how much we pay for those licenses. And does it yield the reward? And open AI is not profitable. OpenAI is not profitable, they are very much in the negative. Like if they were to lose that investment investment funding, they would be bankrupt in like hours because of how much money they require to still my heart. That's true. I don't know if that's true, but like I would wager if we go back to like historical technology and what they do, like that's that's a fact. They don't care right now because they want to be the emergent leader, they'll burn as much as it takes.

SPEAKER_01: 18:57

I don't want to be, I don't want to see anyone lose their job because of this, right? Like, we're in a very bad time societally where people are losing their jobs because of AI. I don't want to see these intelligent individuals who coded these programs to lose their jobs. But what I do want to see is I want to see AI become what it always should have been, which is just an agentic or an aggregate aggregative tool that you use internally in your organization, not some massive in honestly, like what Chat GPT, what Gemini, what Grok, and what uh what's the other one? Uh co-pilot. What they're doing is thiever. They're stealing from every single source they can find on the internet, including piracy, by the way. Like the amount of books and copyright material that AI, like all of them, steal. Which, by the way, if you do this as an end user, if you go download the latest season of severance, you get a cease and desist from Apple or Paramount or whoever, whoever owns the thing that you're you're you're downloading. But when when AI does it, oopsie, like, oh my bad. Like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize the freaking trillion dollar company uh is allowed to get away with something. But when little, you know, Joe Schmoe, who works at freaking 7-Eleven does it, you send a ceasing to assist to his house, and if he does it one more time, he gets a$15,000 fine and three years in jail. That seems, you know, just disappropriate and you know, like completely disconnected, but neither here nor there, I think when this all bursts, I really hope all the talent lands somewhere good. But like I hope all of these companies just burn in hell for what they've done because so many people have lost their jobs because of stupid corporate leadership saying, Oh yeah, we can replace them with Chat GPT. It's it's a prompt forward world we're heading into. And it's like, yeah, I see the outcome of the prompts, the bad. And in fact, we fired the guy who could actually do the thing that the prompt can't do. So, and like, is the it the as the data sets get worse and worse because it's all AI slop now feeding the AI, like, I cannot wait. I cannot wait for the egg on all these people's faces, and they're gonna land, they're gonna get their golden handcuffs, they're gonna be rich, and it's nothing's gonna happen. But it is gonna be so nice to get back to hiring talent and people versus relying on freaking robots that suck at their jobs, uh, taking good talented workers' jobs. Like, yeah, burn in freaking hell, AI. I can't wait, die in a fire.

SPEAKER_04: 21:21

Like the consumer, we're such a we're at such a ceiling right now. Like you're at the metaphorical like glass ceiling of AI, because the more you use it, like the first time you use it, you kind of have that um like novelty effect that you're like, holy cow, never seen anything like this. But then when you start to really use it, you're like, okay, it's missing a lot of things here, and it's hallucinating a lot. Like, even in coding, I've I've realized it's like you build all this context, you're talking to this agent, you're kind of coding together, and then it will code something and be like, that was stupid. Like you just gave me this super complicated algorithm, and now you gave me this thing that's just a piece of trash, and it's gonna run this recursive loop that just crashes my database. Why? Why and then you it gives you a stupid answer. It's like who's gonna fix it? Exactly. Well, that's the problem with like vibe coding right now. The take that I have, I don't know that AI would be dead in 10 years, so that is a hot take. But my take is all these this vibe coding slop and software that's going out right now, they're not gonna know how to fix problems when they arise. Because then when this thing grows, yeah, when you build this enterprise, like this application that's no longer like a couple of users, and now you're like, okay, we got all these problems, like I need to get in there and fix it. AI is not able to actually go into the underpinnings and like figure it out quickly. So if you don't even know what you built, you don't understand how it works, that thing's gonna crash and burn pretty quick. And so that's that's gonna be the next like two years for us, I feel like, is just all these software uh security issues, encryption issues, data protection and privacy issues, a lot of money lost because there's a lot of API keys out there. That's gonna be a mess for the next two years. It's gonna be wild.

SPEAKER_01: 22:58

Well, I should say AI is not gonna die in 10 years as like a thought uh and as a as a technology. AI as we use it today will be dead. I do not believe that Chat GPT, Copilot, Grok will continue to exist because it's too expensive, it's terrible for the environment, they can't scale. It has a physical limitation they're already running into, which is why the RAM thing is happening. So I think that that era and aspect of AI will be gone and it'll be good. We'll be better for it. We'll be much better for it as a society to get rid of it that way. Again, using it internally as a as a tool with your own data. Perfect use case. Do that. That's great. That's what it was designed for. But yeah, yeah. It's the that's the AI minute with Bruce and Clark. Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 23:42

It kind of leads nicely into the topic though.

SPEAKER_01: 23:44

I think it does actually. Uh so uh our new our new Discord member who joined, been on fire, by the way. Shout out to you. I'm not gonna say your name, I don't dox you, but like shout outs you for joining the discord and uh just bringing some heat with some really good conversations in the Discord. If you want to join, by the way, uh the listener, if you're not in the Discord, you can do that by going into your show notes, click the link tree, join the Discord. But they gave us a really good topic that I wanted us to discuss today. Uh, and they said, I was thinking about the idea of corporate world essentially being a giant case of the emperor's new clothes. Everyone is gaslighting themselves that corporate nonsense and endless shareholder value is actually good and not soul destroying trash. I think AI and the big old bubble around it is the prime example of this. No one wants to admit AI isn't that financially viable because they run the risk of collapsing their imaginary stock height-based net worths. People have come to attach so much of their self-worth to their vocation that they're afraid to admit most of their job titles don't really matter. Unless you're building houses, bridges, and infrastructure, or saving lives a doctor or nurse, it's not that deep. Am I alone in thinking this? Clark. Are they alone?

SPEAKER_04: 24:54

Definitely not. Definitely not alone in thinking this. I think this is something we've talked about a little bit in the last, like we've hinted around this topic, but intrinsic motivation, which I'd love to do a series on one day of like how that exists, why it, why people you know have it, why some people don't. And it's composed of the the three things that uh this guy, Dan Pink, talks about, which is mastery, autonomy, and purpose. And what people do is they kind of build purpose. You can build purpose in your head of what you're doing. Like you can make your job purposeful and you can believe in what you're doing. But that's for you to decide if that's purposeful, if that's fulfilling to you, if you feel like that is what you want to do with your life, and that's, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, why you're doing it. And I feel like people do get stuck in their vocation a lot, of like whatever they end up doing, they find how to make it purposeful for themselves. So it's kind of like a perspective that you build. And I look around, I've had this realization a lot lately, like people I work with, and I look at the senior leaders, and I'm like, how do you have the energy to work 14 hours a day, every single day, for as many decades as you have done it in this industry at this one company? It's crazy. Like, and it's you wonder if it's truly fulfilling and purposeful for them because what we do, it's a great thing. I think it provides a lot of value and entertainment for people. But at the end of the day, like the company's gonna move on without any of us. If we left tomorrow, they're just gonna find someone else to fulfill put to put in that role, and then your purpose is gone. Like, no one's gonna remember, maybe in the company they'll remember you for a little while. But like you're not going to have a serious impact on that company and an effect on that company that will be detrimental to the company at a company of this size. And maybe nor should you, but it's hard, and something I've been losing a lot lately, it's like hard to see that value and hold on to that purpose when you realize I'm just a cog in the machine, and it doesn't matter whether I'm here or not. So am I really making an impact?

SPEAKER_01: 26:58

Yeah, and I mean, I I like that. Am I a cog in the machine? Do I make any impact? But to even level it up into like what the topic submitter said, does the machine even matter? Yeah. Right? Like in so many of our jobs, the machine doesn't do anything. Right, right. Like at the end of the day, you know, if you're if you're designing a game or you're making a movie or you're providing uh a fun way to track calories on an app, right? Like, does that matter? Right? Are you doing anything that's pushing society forward? You know, arguably no. But I would also say on the other end, it's like every business exists because there is a consumer that is looking to consume the good the business creates. We do need to be entertained, we do need to relieve stress, you know, we do need to count calories and make sure, you know, like fitness apps and fitness utility, like everything has a purpose, otherwise the business dies. So I do think that there is an argument to be made that like, and you know, I think uh we have capitalist correspondent Alex Restreppo on this podcast a lot to kind of level set us when it comes to money and this kind of thing. And one thing that's always stuck with me is like there is there are needs for everything that the free economy and the fair trade economy should create. I think the problem really comes down to this. I think AI is the perfect example, right? Where is AI actually a product that makes money? Or is AI just this weird financial hype cycle like crypto and many other things that have come before that is just snake oil at the end of the day and it has no monetary value? And I think the the market will eventually correct and fix those things out. But a a business that creates revenue, a business that creates profit exists because there is a consumer for it. And whether that consumer is, I'm going to die and I need this business to keep me alive, it's a hospital, it's a healthcare application, it's something, or it's I'm a, you know, I'm a security agency. I, you know, install security cameras to prevent bad people from breaking into warehouses. Like those things exist because they need to, not because we want them to, right? Right. So I think you you can look at it through a lens of what am I providing and what is the end user getting out of it? There's always going to be some kind of value to be driven. But you have to go big picture to see that, right?

SPEAKER_04: 29:28

Yeah. But but I think you could, I guess what I was getting at was you can make it, you can justify it. I'm sure in every business, it's all in the eye of the beholder, right? It's like, yeah, can you convince yourself that that fact is true, that it's providing a valuable service to the world or making the world a better place? Or is it just doing maybe it isn't, but maybe it's providing some services that at least provide entertainment. And maybe that does make the world a better place. Like you kind of have to convince yourself that is the case. You know what I mean? Like, isn't isn't you having a belief that is what makes that vocation purposeful and fulfilling?

SPEAKER_01: 30:13

I think no. I actually disagree because and this is I'm channeling Restrepo here. This is like he has convinced me of this, right? So you're an entertainment business. You provide an entertainment service that people go and spend their money on. If that entertainment business didn't exist, what would people spend their money on, right? Like I'm I'm accruing money, I'm accruing funds, I work all day, I spend a little bit of money on food, a little bit of money on gas, a little bit of money on my car, my house, the essentials, right? There's the bear you think about Maslov's triangle of needs, right? I've got my my shelter, I've got my spouse or whatever, you know, I've got my my food, my water. But once you start to move up that hierarchy of needs, there is a need to be like mentally simulated. Because if you leave work and sit in a chair and stare at a wall all day, you will go mentally crazy, right? No, I'm gonna go buy a tennis racket, I'm gonna go play tennis, I'm gonna go get outside, right? I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go hiking. Everything has a cost, right? Like keeping the trail paved so you can go on the hike, like there's always going to be a cost to things. And I would say entertainment fulfills that need. And otherwise, what would you spend the money on, right? And if if you didn't need to spend that money, why would you work the job that nets you all this extra money? I I I do think entertainment is a service, like I think there is value in that, right? Like when you boil it down, we spend money on these things because these things are what keep us sane and rational. Yeah, but devil's advocate. What if it becomes a bad thing?

SPEAKER_04: 31:53

What if it becomes a bad thing? Okay is bad. What if you bankrupt yourself? Buying like a gambling addict. Well, think about like the greed aspect of I think what corporate uh correspondent Alex Strapp was talking about in that in that thread is the greed aspect of that kind of eats the great things you're saying, of like, this is good for the world. People need this thing, but then greed overpowers it when it realize, like, oh, there's a market for this. Now I'm gonna squeeze every dang penny and I'm gonna make it addictive. My wife was just sharing this with me. She found an article that was just talking about like the the social or I guess maybe psychological impact on our youth from how games have like video games have changed over time. It's like when you think about like Super Nintendo World and the Mario games, like Nintendo was very explicit on you get three lives, you lose those three lives, it's game over. No saves, no checkpoints, you're dead, you start over until you get to that next level, right? Now, when you think about games, it's you get unlimited games, you get auto saves. So if your battery dies, you disconnect, whatever, you're just gonna restart where you last your last checkpoint. Like they made all these things where it's still entertainment, but it's easier and easier to jump back in and not gain separation from it, which makes it addictive and bad.

SPEAKER_01: 33:18

So as a as an avid gamer, it's gonna seem like uh you know a coke addict defending the Coke over here. But uh I don't I don't disagree with that take. I I would say instead, what I would say is like that's focused on tangential things that are not the issue. Like having auto save in a game just prevents you from being frustrated that you, you know, you're you're you had a power flicker in your house and you're at the end of Mario World and it's like, well, gotta go through all five worlds again. I mean, it's gonna take you hours to do, right? If you had the auto save, you could just restart there, get through, you're done. I beat the game, go move on with my life, right? It gets you to go touch grass, doesn't it? You're so frustrated. I can't do this. I'm not addicted. But if you are addicted, then you're just gonna play it again. It's more time wasted. But like, I think the real problem that exists today, and and I think gaming is actually a really good use case, right? Because I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it. Games have always existed. Uh, to the to the earliest, we've seen like tooth bones with you know dice carved into them. Like games are great. Games are great for the mind. Games are great to actually prevent diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. I agree. Learning new rules. Anytime you can learn new rules, it's great for the brain. Being active, an active participant, not just watching TV, but playing TV, interacting with it. They've they've done studies, it's proven good. What's not good that's happened in gaming, and I think this is the Emperor's new clothes bit. Game has really split into two different fields. You've got Nintendo. I think Nintendo's a prime example, because they still exist, they're still making games, just like the ones they used to, right? When you die in Mario, you start the level over. You've got to solve the problem. You have to make Mario jump the thing, get the coin, do whatever it is that Mario needs to do to get to the end state. But what has been introduced to games in the last 20 years is microtransactions and predatory transactions that allows you to say, well, all I really want was the green hat. And if I can just pay for the green hat, then why don't I even need to play the level? Right? Like when you look at games today, especially games like children, sadly, children play on their phone, mobile-based games, there is no mechanical depth or complexity. It's it's a slot machine, effectively. It's a glorified slot machine where they're giving you plays if you watch ads and you're doing you're doing tasks that don't have mechanical depth or require the player's active engagement, but instead you're you're pulling for things that are gonna either go your way or not go your way by pure chance, and you could pay more money to make that thing happen. Now, I would argue that truly is the insidification of the Emperor's new clothes of society, right? Like this is the bad outcome, but for every bad, I think there is a good, right? And you could say the same thing about healthcare. Like, it's true, you know. I I hate to make it like this bleak, but do you really believe there is no cure for cancer?

SPEAKER_04: 36:18

Right. These are things like I was talking to someone the other day, there's certain certain things I don't want to know, and that's like one of them. That's one of them.

SPEAKER_01: 36:26

And absolutely, like yes, we don't know, we can't know. Uh, you know, there have been the clock is the clock is ringing. There have been, you know, rumors that there are you know pill-based treatments that exist in China that aren't FDA approved to be used over here. We don't know how legitimate or authentic that is. But here's the thing what makes the healthcare industry more money than any other disease? It's heart disease, cancer, and addiction, right? And sadly, uh, because of the way you know living in America, our insurance works, they are they're behooved to keep patients sick and coming back for more because they're not paid enough just by normal, you know, wellness checkups and visits to sustain the business. They need more deadly and longer treatable illnesses. Right. Like when you start to peel back the onion, it gets very conspiratorial. And I'm not claiming that any of this is actually true. I'm just hypotheticalizing.

SPEAKER_04: 37:21

Well, speaking of healthcare, like what's the biggest, what's the biggest boom right now? It's it's weight loss treatments, right? Ozempic. Yeah. Yeah. Like the the biggest. Which does nothing other than make you stop eating. Exactly. The second you get off of it, you get right back on eating. And listen, I'm not going to claim to know anything about this because I'll be honest, I can do. But I can tell you I do 99% of the people who are using it could just do regular exercise and properly diet and lose weight. Correct. Well, that's now there are people who need it, right? Like people really need it. But this is a quick way to do it. And so to go back to this whole thing, it's like, okay, it might be you could convince yourself, I'm working at the big O. This is good. This is good for the world. But then it's like, oh, we could we could help so many more people. And this is helping so many people, but in reality, is it helping people? Like, this is going back to our new listeners' thoughts. It's like, or is this just making society worse because it's creating shortcuts and ways around just doing what you healthly should be doing, and it's actually making human society and health worse.

SPEAKER_01: 38:28

And and to get to like the actual meat and potatoes of the question, is the marketing manager at Ozimpic who creates those stupid little ads you see when you're browsing Reddit, that's like, lose weight and be happy. Are they providing a service? Yeah. Are they good people? And like this is where it gets really gray for me, right? Because I I do know a bit about Ozempic, and it the whole the whole idea of the drug is it curbs um cravings in the brain. Basically, it is a is a is a chemical that is attaching to specific parts of your brain that helps curb cravings specifically. But unfortunately, when you take this drug, it works phenomenally. The second you stop taking it, those cravings come right back. You never learned to not crave, which is something that takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy, a lot of you know, willpower and patience and time. It's not easy. And Ozimpic does not fix that. Now, there are theories actually that Ozimpic could be really useful for helping get people through the withdrawal phases of like heroin addiction, uh, you know, harder drugs that you know they have those hard withdrawal phases. You still have the craving, but you wouldn't get the withdrawal. Like there could be benefits, like it's not, I'm not saying the drug is bad, but I am saying the way the drug is being marketed and the way the drug is being used and consumed isn't helping the root cause of the problem, which is exactly what you're saying. I don't know, right? Like, it is it good, is it bad? Is it gray? Does the marketing manager at Ozimpik who makes those stupid ads, are they a good person? Does their job matter? Do they? Exist right.

SPEAKER_05: 40:01

Oh no. I know it gets worse the more you think about it.

SPEAKER_04: 40:05

We've had we had a couple um other folks in our Discord kind of chime in. This this became kind of a good conversation around many of our listeners. And um there are a couple things quoted, like there's a book by David Graber called Bullshit Jobs. So Ike posted this, and he kind of just talked about that. The argument is these types of roles or people in in work in general is not designed to produce value, but to keep people busy on a society level in a self-perpetuating system of creating make work. So it's kind of like like at one point, people had to hunt for their food and gather for their food and like go actually physically work with their hands to survive. Now that because our our lives have abstracted so much to a level of comfort, like we don't need to do those things. So now a lot of work kind of just becomes moving things around and trying to find other ways to spend that time that we don't have to do to cover our bare needs. And I think that's a really interesting like point of all this I mean, worth and value comes from like what the market says at the end of the day. But exactly, it's all fake. But I think it is because we do have this extra time because we're in a comfortable state of living when you look at it comparatively with the rest of time.

unknown: 41:19

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 41:20

So we need to do something to your point with our time. Well, I mean with our resources.

SPEAKER_01: 41:24

This is not the direction I expected to go, but I think the real solve to this problem is shorter work days. Or less work days in general, right? Like at the end of the day, is what we're doing. So, you know, I'll I'll throw myself on the pyre here. Here's how I justify here's how I justify my existence as a human being on this earth, right? I work at a company that provides a security solution that by itself, you know, has the goal of securing data, right? Like that's we're here to secure data. Now, as a marketer, my job is to sell this product to the world saying, hey, if you use our product, we will secure your data. So if you are hit by a ransomware attack, you're able to get your data back because it's on our device. Right. And I'm justifying this in the back of my head. I tell these stories, right? I'm a marketer, so I'm telling these stories. Healthcare institutions need our device because when the NHS attack happened in 2017, like people were open on the the surgery table and they had to get you know closed back up because they couldn't pull patient records. So I'm justifying the work I do. If I sell my device to healthcare, to schools, to whomever, I'm keeping businesses alive, which could in turn be keeping people alive. Now, someone could buy our device and use it for ill, right? They could be putting bad information on there. Like I had to I have to deal with that too. But I sleep at night because I think the service that my business provides has more value than it hurts, right? Now you could say, well, why does the bad actor exist? Why aren't you going after the ransomware attackers? Why aren't you doing X number of there's X number of Ys you could ask? It's like, well, why aren't you doing this? Right. Right. The five Y's that's someone else needs to solve that problem, right? Like I'm I'm solving this problem here. And I think most people, I think the majority of people can go through this thought exercise and get to a, this is why my job exists, this is why my company exists, and there is a net positive to us existing in the world. Right. For me, the problem really comes down to are we doing this for the good or are we doing this for the profit? And that's the conversation that makes me feel uncomfortable, just in general, right? Like I work at a startup, we have to make money to keep the lights on of the business. We're not in the phase where it's like Apple, I'm gonna go create a VR headset because if we don't turn more profit this year than we did the year before, even though we're a trillion dollar company, um, our stock goes down for some weird reason because the market's all made up and all of this is stupid. So we're gonna make a VR headset and hopefully that drives our share price up. Like, that's stupid. That serves no purpose. You're not innovating for the sake of innovation, you're innovating for the sake of profit. Right. And again, I think that's where it gets difficult and slippery. But you got to have that conversation with yourself at your job. And if you feel like you're not doing that, or if your company is like so profit motivated that they've lost sight of the goal, you know, healthcare apps that charge ridiculous amounts of money to use them. Is that right? Like if if your app can save people, shouldn't shouldn't it be affordable? Like, you know? Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 44:38

I have two kind of final thoughts on this. Because I do think it does come down to like how do you see the value that you drive? And and I think it also like you should be convinced that your company is doing the right thing. We had an old CEO that would talk about the business was built on a three-legged stool. You have the you know, employees of the company, you know, the people who are building the things, the people that are doing the things, like you have to take care of those people because without those people, you don't have a product. Then you have the consumers of your product. The consumers of your product, you have to take care of them. You have to build things that they care about. You have to make sure that they're they're thought about at every level of the process. And then you also have a fair and reasonable return. These were exact words of what he built the business on. A fair and reasonable return. So trying to make sure that it's not ridiculous. Like you're making it fair to compare against your operating cost to make it a viable business, but you're not going to go so crazy to make things addicting on purpose to drive like microtransactions and all that. Like, that's not what the business is about. But I think that's a really core, like I love that. Our our old CEO was really, really old school, but I love that because it made you feel like this business has integrity. Like we are doing things because it's the right thing to do, not because we can squeeze every single penny out of every single person who consumes our entertainment. Like that's not what it's about. And so I think you also have to think about that in regards to where you work. Like that's the feedback I'd give. Like, think back to like what your business is all about, what you hear from your readers, and look at the way, don't just listen, look at the way you work and think about if that's the right things to be doing. And the second thing I'd say, just to kind of um like close, I guess, on that. Like you can, I think you can make this as deep or as shallow as you want to. Yeah, agree. Agree. It's all it's all in your hands. Like you can really care about this, and I think this is what the conversation got to in the the the chat in the Discord, or you can just say, you know what, I'm just here to earn a paycheck and I can push some things around. What I'd found is like the more and more I feel like I'm not providing value and I'm just pushing papers around, which at our level, at the director-ish level, you do kind of get caught in the minutia of the day-to-day and just pushing things around, and you get separated from actually doing the work or the value that's provided to your consumer. And the further away you get away from that, you kind of lose touch with the value you provide. So I'd say to like anybody thinking this, for a second, step back into where you see your company providing value and get closer to the consumer because that's going to make it feel better to re-invigorate you to say, oh wow, what I do is actually really cool. And that's why I started working here in the first place, to see this, this, and this. And I think I'd I'd remind people, and I'll post this in the Discord after that, go do that. Don't just work in the work, go and see the product and actually get closer to that because that might actually remind you why you're doing all this in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 47:47

I freaking love everything you just said, and I feel like anything I would say after that would just be shallow potato cheese. So wow. Uh, you crushed it. You cried you crushed it with that ending because it's so true. It is so, so true. And I've seen this in my life. Like what you just said is what I went through. I was in dev, I felt completely disconnected from I didn't even understand like who would buy our product. But when I went into sales, I'm like, oh my gosh, this this this helps people. Like this actually helps people. And I only saw that from the sales side. You know, now I'm in the marketing side, which kind of straddles the line of both. And that's my job, really, is to like, I I tell my coworkers why what we do matters. And I believe it. Like, I'm not just I'm not just saying this to say it. Like, I do believe many, I think most businesses do what they do because it matters. Like, ah, you you're perfect, Clark. Never change. Love you, bud.

SPEAKER_04: 48:44

That's why we do this. It was an enlightening moment for me, and I'm happy, like, I'm happy we're having this conversation. And this is why we love our Discord community so much because people come in there with these things, and it's like we get an opportunity to not only remind ourselves and and think about ways that we can get closer to you know the things that we probably get disconnected to in our day-to-day because I'm I'm the same as you when I was in dev, that's how I got to product management. I kept on asking why, like, why are we building this thing? What is this? I'm called to build a feature. I don't even understand why I'm building this. I'm just building it because I was told to. And like I kept asking why, why, why? And they're like, stop talking to me about it, go talk to them. And like, I that's how I found product management. It's like, oh, those are the people who come up with these ideas, and these are the people that they're talking to. And that's where I kind of found, you know, what I enjoyed doing, getting closer to the consumer. So I I love that's why I love our community, because we can engage in topics like this and we can have this really interesting conversation that I think sparks and lights a lot of bulbs for us.

SPEAKER_01: 49:38

Yeah, what what I'll throw out there is uh a fun little activity. If you feel like you're at one of these jobs, it doesn't matter. Go into the is it me or is it corporate channel, do forward slash confess in our Discord. Uh, it will anonymize what you do. But just give us like a brief little summary of your business and we will respond in the Discord. Other, I invite other Discord people to join in this activity as well to say whether or not, honestly, we feel your you what your business does or what your job does actually matters, actually has value. I think you'll be shocked because I I do truly believe most of these do bring value in some way, shape, or form and do make the world a better place for existing. Like, like that's the human condition, right? Like we have to, we have to build, we have to fix, we have to solve and grow. And most businesses exist for that reason. So I think we can figure it out. But go in there, hashtag is it me, is it corporate, forward slash confess, type it in, and we'll either do it on the pod or we'll do it in the chat real time with you. So I'll throw that out there. Also, just shout outs to if you feel, if this is, if this is one of those things that like it really sits with you, if you're losing sleep at night over it, consider talking to a therapist. Because I think a lot of times, a lot of this comes from a worldview or sort of like a narrowed blindered view where you need to express what you're going through in your specific situation to someone else, someone who is a trained professional. Right. We are not that. But I I truly believe a lot of this can be helped with the act of therapy. And therapy is often looked at as sort of this, you know, like less than only non-normal people go to therapy. Absolutely untrue. The most normal of normals go and they're better for it. It's good for you, it's good for the brain. So I'll throw that out there as well, just as a we can't fix every problem. We try to, but uh, you know, if this does get you down, that's always an option. Yeah, 100% agree.

SPEAKER_04: 51:31

And also maybe just take a break. Go touch grass. Sometimes good to separate, separate from it for a minute, maybe take a day off. You know, then Mario will be there. He'll be there when you come back from him.

SPEAKER_02: 51:41

He'll be like, it's me, Mario. I've been waiting for you. I've been standing here for four days. Why are you not walking me across the pit? Little Yoshi, he dying of hunger. He dying of hunger. Now I have a dead Yoshi. I eat him. I hate the Yoshi. He's dead.

SPEAKER_04: 51:54

I'm alive. Why is the voice? Why is the voice getting higher and higher pitched? Like it's just off adnitive.

SPEAKER_02: 52:01

I could I put a mushroom on a Yoshi. Now I'm big. I'm big and I'm green. I ate him. He's delicious.

SPEAKER_04: 52:11

Gee, nobody actually, well, I mean, a lot of people on our Discord do know who you are. But for people who don't know, his last name gets him out of all this. You can't cancel him, okay? It's very Italian. You cannot cancel me.

SPEAKER_01: 52:23

I have lived with this name, my first and last name. So just a fun fact about me. Yes, third most common name in Sicily, where my family comes from. So I am like, I'm not Italian by birth, but by blood and by name that I have been made fun of my whole life for carrying, I am allowed to do any and all of this, and you cannot stop me. So uh yeah, I uh I get the free pass.

SPEAKER_04: 52:49

You know what I am gonna start doing? And I can't get canceled for this. Instead of saying sauce, I'm just gonna say gravy from now on. Do it, say gravy. Say gravy. I'm making spaghetti and meatballs and be like, hey, I'm making the I'm making the sauce. You're making the gravy. I'm making the gravy. Shoot, I already messed it up.

SPEAKER_00: 53:04

Put a gravy in a pasta. Look at the paisan over here, huh? Putting the gravy on the pasta. Oh, look at them all grown up. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04: 53:12

I'm pouring the gravy on the chicken.

SPEAKER_00: 53:13

Put a gravy on the chicken. Yeah, do it.

SPEAKER_01: 53:16

Do it. I think that's all we have time for. This has been the uh the Italian Strategists podcast. Uh, if you'd like to engage with us further about all things Italy, an Italian-American lifestyle, you can go to your show notes, click that little link tree. You can get access to our Discord, you can get access to our website. We've got a merch shop that we desperately need to update with new ideas. Uh, we've also got a bias of coffee, which if you have bought us a coffee, I've not checked since the last pod, but I did throw this on Clark. I said, Clark, you have access to the email. If they do buy us a coffee, you're the one who should see it. Has anyone bought us a coffee that we need to shout out? No, I think we signed up for it.

SPEAKER_04: 53:55

This is your free email. I'm gonna check it. I'm gonna check it and I'm gonna add an auto forward so it goes to the one that I actually check.

SPEAKER_01: 54:04

Okay, do it. Okay, that's on you. Um, but if you do support the show, we thank you so much. It truly does keep us online, right? Every literally every dollar that has come from the bias of coffee, I've taken and I've put it directly into our Buzz Sprout account, which is what we use to host this podcast on. So we don't take any of your money to do anything other than keep the pod afloat. Other than that, it comes directly out of my bank account. So if you want to support the show, you can buy us a coffee. It's a great way to help out. And there's other things to do in the Linktree too, but they're not nearly as important as that. What is important is if you listen to this pod uh and you heard the beginning part where Clark was talking about people wanting to be guests, I did notice our our listening listenership has not trended in the positive. Now it hasn't trended in the negative either, but it has definitely trended in the flat line. So we have not really grown much this year. If you would like to help, do us a Christmas solid, holiday solid, whatever you celebrate solid. Maybe it's just a December solid. Share this pod with one person you know. Uh, you know, maybe share this episode. I think this is a pretty good episode. It's not a bad one. You can go back and uh do our interview with a marine engineer episode. I think that was a pretty interesting one. Um, share an episode that you like with a friend as a gift to us for the holiday season. We'd be so appreciative of that because we would like to see the podcast grow bigger and have more listeners. Um, and we only can do this through listeners like you. Uh, we're like PBS, but even more lazy. So please help us out if you can, and we would really appreciate that. And if you can't, we still appreciate your listenership and we love you for exactly who you are. Never change. Never. Except do, except share it with your friends. But never change. Okay, change just that. But everything else keep exactly the same. Everything else. Literally everything else. You can keep your finger up your nose if you want. Just share it with your friends. Uh and I think that I think that does it for another episode of Corporate Strategy Podcast and email numbers. And you're on mute. We will see you next week.