Spicy Meatball Cold Open

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome back to Riggetton Tony's spicy Italian meatball kitchen. I'm a Riggettone Tony, and today we're gonna be talking all about how we make the spiciest meatball. Carla, you're on the line. What kind of meatball are you making today? Uh Carlo, you're on the line. You're on the line, Carl.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

And I almost spit right in the microphone because that just broke my concentration.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I'm sorry, you're not making a spicy meat and ball. Hang up the phone. And hello, Carla, you're on the line. You want a spicy meatball? I'll take two. No, you gotta make them yourself.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

You're too good at this. You're too good at this. And it's not appropriation because of your last name.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

It's not appropriation. I'm allowed to do whatever the heck I want.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yeah, you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Any Italian heritage thing I can do legally. It's in the bylaws.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

I can't. I can't. It's not in my bylaws. It's not my genome. You're not allowed to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

You're not allowed to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

No, I'd be canceled. I'd be canceled here, live. Right, right on the shelf. Just gone. Yeah. Gone. Never to return.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Live cancellation.

unknown 1:26

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Over to Tony Tony. That's fun. We should do that. Just give them a. I think that'd be a good time. Give him an X. Give him a double O. Hey, we got Core Strategy Podcast Kevin and email. I'm Anthony.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

And I'm Michael. And I feel like we gotta add something to our intro. I feel like we've got to add something to the intro. And this is the number one corporate strategist podcast in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Oh, I mean, that's true though. I think that is true.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

We are.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

We are the number one podcast all the corporate strategy in the world, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

We are the number one corporate strategist podcast in the world. How does this true?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I mean, it's an honor. It's a privilege and a pleasure. It's a real honor. I couldn't have done it without my uh producer, Craig. Rest in peace. We miss you, Craig, every day. You used to be so pivotal to this, and now you're gone. And I'm left with Michael. So Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I mean, at least it's Michael now. At least we can share our true identities. Because before, Craig, you never knew. You never knew what information he was gathering on us. You never knew what he knew about our personal lives. You never knew what he would do to us in our sleep. And now we don't have to worry about that, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I think Craig was up to some really bad stuff. Like real bad stuff. Back in the days when we had Craig producing the show, uh, when we'd when we would end the the recording, like I would literally see Craig like go grab a hatchet and a shovel, and he would just walk out of the office like with a scowl on his face. And I'm like, no one, no one walks out with a hatchet and a shovel that's up to any good. That's all I'm throwing out there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, even even if you think like, oh, I'm gardening. No, no, no. If you go to like a Home Depot or a Lowe's and you are grabbing a hatchet and a shovel, like you should be put on a list. You should be put on a list right there. The that the most wanted list of the town.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah. I mean, you throw a weed whacker in the mix and suddenly you're gardening. You put some hand pruners, you're gardening.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Just hatchet shovel combo, no good. No good.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah, you don't want to go bleach. Don't get that.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Also, no good.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Bleach, bad news. Okay, no, here it is. Here it is. Duct tape. Everyone go and watch. Yeah, everyone go and watch the episode of Breaking Bad where they have to do the thing in the tub and just look at the list of things that they bought and don't buy those things at one time. Because the second you buy those things at one time, you're being put on a list.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Alternatively, do go buy those things and see what happens. Uh, please call into the show and let us know. This is Rigatoni Tony's spicy meatball. We want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

1-800 spicy meatball, please.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

1-800 call a spicy meatball. Call us in. Come on, do it.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Go go and try it out. We want to know what happens. Why not? Why not? It is weird how you can just throw in any of those small things and then automatically you're gardening and you don't have to worry about looking like a serial killer. That's all it takes. It's amazing. Just remember that. It's amazing. Pro tip. If you are a serial killer, you can just you know buy all those things and then just you know throw in like a pack of seeds.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Why is it gotta be serious? What if you're just a member of a family that's looking to get rid of someone who might have ratted you out to the fence? I mean, had it coming at that point. Just make it look like you're gardening. That's the that's the pro tip of the day.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

That's the key.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

That's the key. That is the key. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

We might be put on a list just for that, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So uh if I'm not on a list, I've messed it up. That's fair. I've messed it.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

So even I'm not on a list. I don't yet.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

You're a known associate, therefore you're on the list. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I talk to you more than I talk to anyone, so you are definitely on the list by proxy of known association with me. Congrats. This is so unfortunate. I think we should just cancel the podcast. I think so. I've been

Burnout As A Recipe

SPEAKER_01 5:20

saying it for years. I've been saying it for years.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Well, we're here again. I want a vibe check from you. How are we doing? You got to you got a nice fun shirt on. If you're watching on the YouTube channel, you would see it. And one thing I know that you all don't know yet is that Rickatoni Tony has this Friday off. And may or may not be dead inside. Oh, I'm sorry. I know he's not frozen because I can see his fan above his head. You want to know how I'm doing?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I do have Friday off. I'm excited because you and I are gonna stream uh Jurassic Park Evolution. I think I have the second game, so we might just jump into Jurassic Park Evolution 2. We're gonna let you build another theme park. This time it has dinosaurs to eat people. So we'll we'll be putting that on a run. Um I'm I'm not. I'm not. It's just it's it's just I just don't want to work anymore. I don't want to work anymore. You know, like I'm tired. You're just worn out, huh? Worn out. I'm more thin. I I am in a state of existential dread paired with exhaustion, paired with uh frustration, with a hint, with a hint of fear, panic, okay, anxiety. Yeah, adding a dash of cilantro, and you got a spicy mid ball!

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Hey welcome back to make a thought about it, spicy mint ball.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

The biggest troll ever. Uh yeah. Okay, okay, so this is what we just I think you just put together a recipe for a certain thing I like to call burnout. A little bit of self-doubt, a little bit of exhaustion, a little fear, a dash of maybe infuriation, and then you know, just a sprinkle of cilantro and burnout. That's what it equals. Yeah. Oh I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah, I it's weird. It's not I don't because I was definitely burnt out last year. I was burnt out last year, and I don't feel burnt out in the way that I was then, where it was like I was so frazzled, I couldn't even do good work. Like I do great work. Uh it hasn't impacted my ability to do work. I'm I'm good at working, I'm good at doing good work. I'm I am just ever more concerned about the future and dreading the future, whilst also dealing with the present, which is just a lot. So that's where I am. That's where I am. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

So it's more than just work, it's existential fear of life.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

It's existential, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

You need a good European summer vacation, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I do. Oh, I do.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

You need to take like a long time off.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I do.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

And get get away, go into isolation. But see, don't pay attention to anything in the world.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

That's that's also the fear, right? It's because I know what's coming. I see it, I know it, the data backs it up. I know what's coming. So if I stop working, suddenly the irrelevance starts going. Every day I don't work is one less day I maintain my employment status. Ergo vis-a-vis concordedly. I can't relax because the second you relax, you are replaced. And I don't want to be replaced. No other choice. I'm telling you, you have to go watch no other choice. I'm gonna bring it up every podcast until you do it.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Until I actually see it.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Until you actually see it.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

I deserve that. I deserve that until I do.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

The the the workers movie of our time. Is it streaming? I don't know. It's Korean, man. I saw it in theaters. Like a like a real champ, like a real G. I go see my foreign films in theaters.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

I'm gonna have to look this up. You're gonna make me you're gonna make me have to look this up and see if it's streaming. No other choice. Korean film and theaters question mark.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Uh no, it's not in theaters anymore. I saw it in like December. You're gonna have to you're gonna have to find it. You're gonna have to find it. Okay, I'm looking it up.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I'm looking up. It's on Hulu. Oh great. Which I do have a subscription to slash Disney Plus, whatever it is. I don't know what the difference is. I think they're the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

You have no excuse.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

So maybe I have to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

You must watch it.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

You must. Okay. I guess I have to.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

But that's but that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

The one thing I will caution you with is after you watch it, you will gain my mindset. Do you do you want to feel the way I feel?

SPEAKER_02 10:04

It's contagious. It is contagious.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Do you want to feel the way I feel?

SPEAKER_02 10:07

I don't I don't think I do. You know, I think I have the opposite thing. Like, I already quit my job.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

You did quit your job. You did.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I already left my job. I pretty much live in a situation where I'm like this close to like being off the grid.

Privacy Fears And Your Ad Profile

SPEAKER_02 10:25

You know what I mean? Like, like I am, I am so close, I can smell it. Like, I snip one wire and we're off the grid. You use Google Chrome, which I've pointed out multiple times in our Discord.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

You need to stop doing as we stream to YouTube. Uh, you need to stop, Mr. Off the Grid. You are giving them so much more than they are taking.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Trust. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding when I heard I heard my Mac Studio fans spinning up the other day, and I've never heard that. And I go and check the good old activity monitor. Google Chrome decided to eat up 22 gigs of my RAM. 22. Why? Why are there 5,000 Google subprocesses running on my Mac? I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

There is a very real possibility, like between Google, Meta, Palantir, and you know OpenAI that they're trying to like actively build a slave race. And the start of that is collecting every single piece of information about us that they can so they can figure out our profile. So when they put us into you know the prisons, um, we're we're already sorted. So I would stop. I would just my recommendation to you is stop. Just stop.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

See, I don't give them anything else. I live in this dichot dichotomy of always connected and deeply in tech to them being like this close to being off-grid and butt naked in the wild. See, it's it is funny because you literally live in the woods. You live in the middle of freaking nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

And you have given them there was a deer for reference. There was a deer that just kind of walked right in front of my office like minutes ago.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Question, what's your what's your what ads do you get served on a day-to-day basis? Like what ads do you see?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I don't. I don't because I have uh an ad blocker.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Okay. So you don't get any ads. When you watch a YouTube video, you don't get served an ad.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

I don't, except for on certain devices, interesting enough. Certain devices bypass it. So like what kind of ads do you get? What's interesting is like on streaming services, I get a lot of like, I think standard ads that everyone else gets. Like oh, oh, oh, oh, Ozempic. That definitely was the O'Reilly tune for Ozempic. But I get like trifecta.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Like I get like five billion of those, and like then they do all the disclaimers after they all are the same thing. Yeah, severe risk of death. And you're like, oh, okay, well, that sounds good. And I don't use any of those things. So why do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So they think you're like a geriatric 70 plus year old grandma. That's your ad profile right now. Either that's for overweight, uh, in need of weight loss medication. Yeah, middle-aged. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

It's interesting too is occasionally I get thrown a Spanish ad, like fully in Spanish, it's because of my wife's last name.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I was gonna say, I know exactly why this is.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

She doesn't speak Spanish, which is why it's even funnier. But it just throws it out there, and you're just listening, you're like, oh yeah, we just got targeted because of your last name.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah. The um you are off the grid physically. I'm off the grid electronically. I scrub all of my information. Nothing leaves except whole home ad blocker. I I anonymize all information going out. I scramble data uh when I can just to throw the scent off. Like I get the weirdest ads, man. Like the weirdest stuff that makes no sense. Like, I'm like, oh, I don't even know who this is for. I get like ads for tattoo guns. I I kid you not. I get ads for tattoo guns. Um that's weird. Like, because when sometimes you have to you have to browse ad-free, right? So I'll go into my you know, my profile where I can look at things with ads, and it like literally give me ads for tattoo guns. Like, I don't have tattoos, I have no interest in tattoos. I'm certainly not qualified to give a tattoo. Uh interesting. It's working though. That's what I know. My lifestyle is working, and I'm on the grid. So just you know, get rid of Google Chrome. That's all I can tell you is get rid of Google Chrome.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, I really didn't need to. I can tell you just like going to Safari for five minutes, doing the exact same thing I do I was doing on Chrome, immediately like a 10x reduction in RAM usage. Yeah, yeah. I was just curious, so I wanted to try. I did it, and that was the result.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I I like Safari. I do I use Safari for work. Um what's that? You're a big Safari guy. Yeah, I mean, I use it for work. Yeah, I like it for work, it does the job. Um, I use Brave for fun. Brave is where I do my fun stuff, and uh I'll also use Firefox. I actually use Firefox with a pod. Believe it or not. I do.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah, see that one's weird. Like doing Firefox is weird. I don't know why it's weird, but it's just weird.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

And I think Firefox is the best of the bunch. I mean, like it the problem is it it has a fundamental flaw that can wreck uh gaming sessions, so that's why I don't I use Brave for fun and I use Firefox for uh Corpse strat. But uh yeah, yeah, privacy is a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone should take privacy seriously.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, I'm gonna start noting down like what my ads are. I'm curious. I know some of them, like as I've been thinking about it more because I've just kind of not been thinking about it. I do get a lot of like phishing stuff, like boat ads and stuff like that. So I do get a couple of those. I'm gonna start like noting them down. I'll bring it to the next episode because I'm building your profile start remember.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Don't give it to them.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

They know a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Don't give it to them. Don't let them. Um, yeah, data data manipulation is it's really bad. Just it's really bad. Things it things are so much worse than we think they are. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. Like the things that are happening underneath our noses that everyone just willingly accepts and gives away for free. Uh, but you know, we can use that.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

This is like so indicative of your vibe check. Like, this is your vibe check. Like you just go into these rabbit holes and you have these existential threats happening.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Knowledge is a curse. Truly, knowledge is a curse. The more you know, and the more you the more you understand of what's going on, the more it is absolutely a curse. And I would love to go live in Denmark, but I don't speak Dutch. So yeah, that's the problem. That's the problem. Uh DeRichel hashtag shoutouts de Rikel, teach me Dutch, teach me Danish. I need to come, I need to come live with you, please. Save me.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Oh, by the way, speaking of DeReichel, how cool is it that in our Discord people are just randomly asking questions about boats because they were curious if their company's GPUs would be delayed? And we just have an expert who was able to share like some insider tips on like what may or may not be happening. How how cool is that? How cool is that that our Discord community has that?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yes. I love our Discord community. Hey, how can people join that if they wanted to?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Well, we finally have a link tree, and it is inside of the YouTube description. I'm gonna wait for you to nod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And you podcast player of choice, it's right there. You go down there, you hit the link, there's a little button that says join our Discord, you click that, and then boom, boom, bring back both. It's that easy.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Uh yes, it is that easy. And I want to apologize because I realized I said Dutch when I was talking about Denmark. It's Danish. Like I don't know why I said that. It's been a long week. I apologize to every single Dane watching this, especially Der Eichel, the most.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah, you don't like you don't speak American.

Pottery, Rest, And Small Joys

SPEAKER_02 18:05

I mean, we kind of do. We do time it too.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I've been uh I've been my my wife has uh bought us classes. I've been learning how to throw pottery wheels, uh pots on a pottery wheel. So every Monday for two hours we go and we do pottery. And that's sweet. It's actually so much harder than you think it would be. Like pottery wheel is very difficult. Very difficult. Like Ghost, the movie makes it look so easy. It's not. Um, I made a bowl. I successfully made a bowl this week. But in order to get better, uh, we have been watching the great British pottery throwdown, which is a competition show where people make pots, and there's a lot of good tips on the show, and uh it's been very helpful. But the thing I've realized in watching that is people in the UK, they just like don't speak English. Or they speak English, we speak American. Like there are times and like I'm pretty sure I understand things, but like there are times and like that's not words I'm familiar with. Those are not words that we use here, they're not. So I'm I'm calling it. We speak American. We speak America. England can have English, it's in their name. But uh America, we got American.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

We got Merican, that's how we speak. Yeah, it's cool. I like that you guys are doing pottery though. That's a good, like, therapeutic hands on the earth type of thing. I I think I told you I took a year of pottery in high school, and I was not very good at it, but it was very satisfying, like using the wheel, making a bowl or a mug or whatever it is, doing the glaze or whatever, throwing it in the kiln. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

I'm enjoying it. I really am. I'm thinking about getting a wheel for the garage.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

I mean, something's gotta go alongside all those boxes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Something. I mean, you know, when two-thirds of your garage is just straight up shipping containers, you gotta fill the extra third with pottery equipment.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

That's right. Well, the great news about those shipping containers, if you ever want to be like a doomsday prepper, you can just fill them with cans of food. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

I I mean, I'm gonna fill them with my body and Indiana Jones myself out of the nuclear apocalypse. That's another great idea. No one will ever think to look in us. No, they'll never. They'll be like, oh, these boxes are for statue parts. There's no human in there. Little do they know. They had no idea. They had no idea. This is how I survived. Bob check, how you doing?

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Things up. Uh, how am I doing? I'm here. I'm good, I guess. Nice. Good. I I told you how my you translated, you translated your your foot thing to me, so now I have your foot. But I've been taking it easy, not doing long walks, not running on the treadmill. I've been doing rowing, which has taken some pressure off the foot, which has really helped. However, I'm starting to think, and this is as I'm getting older, I think it's my shoes. I think like I gotta get like a custom insole shoe because it's putting some pressure on certain, I don't know, ligaments, muscles, whatever it is, my foot, and I think that's causing the issue. Hey, how do you?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

My brother-in-law is a podiatrist. He got me on Flux F-L-U-X. Uh, let me highly recommend this brand to you. They podiatrist recommended, they're not cheap, but I've bought multiple pairs now. My feet feel great, they feel great to walk in. It almost feels like you're wearing a sock. It gives you support where you need it, and it gives you cushion and comfort where you don't need support. Great shoe. Great, great shoe. They come in athletic shoes, they got sneakers. I will continue to buy them because I have never felt so copacetic with a shoe in my life. Highly recommend.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

I It can tell you that their Google store rating needs some help. They have a two and a half star.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I wouldn't know. I don't Google. I go straight to the source.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

I'm just throwing it out there. It's interesting that they have two and a half stars. But I am willing to try something new, and it's almost new shoe season. So I think I'll I think I'll have to give it a go. You know, that's a this this whole conversation is a problem.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

This is a problem. Like literally, I just recommended you a podiatrist endorsed shoe. And Google told you, uh, it's 2.5. And you went with Google over your bestie and a podiatrist. What is wrong with you?

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Why would you do this to me? And a podiatrist. I know, I know your podiatrist, brother-in-law. He's a great guy. I trust you over this. I was just I was just stating a fact that I saw two and a half stars. Not great. They've got to figure that out. No, no, they don't need to change anything. They have a great shoe. I'm telling you, it's a great shoe. Maybe that's the trick, is like they are just so undercover. Like no one will ever know.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

I don't know. I mean, how well wear these shoes at like conferences and events. People are like, oh, you've got fluxes. Because like people know. People, what uh one of my good friends, viewer the pot, works with me at my job, probably watching right now. Uh he might slack me during this during this segment. Him and I are on the same page about fluxes. I'm just saying, like, this is not some outsider who needs help. Like the shoe. I recommend this shoe because it is the best shoe. Just I mean, it would like literally, you know, turn it sideways and shove it up the big O. But uh, you know, that's that's my opinion. This is my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Well, they do look nice, and you know, comparatively to like big shoe brands, they're not that expensive.

unknown 23:44

They're not.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I mean, but you know, I think in this day and age, anything over a hundred bucks is expensive for a lot of people. So just you know, I gotta I gotta say it's expensive because one, you should value your footwear uh because you're on your feet more than you're not. Yeah, and if you're gonna wear shoes, you should wear shoes that that respect your body. And I think that's a good one. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, I'm gonna have to give them a go. Because I am curious. I'm thinking, I'm thinking that might like I'm gonna wear another pair of shoes when I exercise. I have a backup pair to just see if my foot feels different. But I was just walking in them. I was walking in them, and I was like, some don't feel right. And I think it's just as I'm getting older, the body's less flexible, it's a little more rigid. I think I think that's the issue. So I think a new pair of shoes is is in the cards.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

So thank you. Thank you for the recognition. Oh, yeah, of course. I was just responding to uh apparently our audio might be weird, but uh, you know. Oh we'll we'll get it fixed. Thanks to our our lovely commenters for catching that.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

I wonder, I wonder what it is. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's you.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Maybe it's Maybelline.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Maybe it's Maybelline.

Corporate Career Or Entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_02 24:55

That's the question. Hey, you got a topic for today. Come from one of our listeners. I do yeah, come from one of our loyal corporate strategists, number one corporate strategy podcast in the world. I can't even say it. We do a portcast. You want to do a podcast? I'll do a portcast.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

I'm down to do a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah, I don't know what that means, but I'm in. So so yeah, yeah, I got a topic. Um something that has come up a lot and is like the big flashy thing, especially since AI is making it easier than ever to create software and things on the internet. One of the topics came up around talking about you know being an entrepreneur versus taking the corporate career path. And what are kind of the pros and cons of either, maybe things that you didn't consider, maybe one path leads to another and what might that look like? And so I thought it'd be fun for us to talk about that, especially now that I've quit my job and I am a full-time entrepreneur running a business. And both of us did spend a majority of our lives so far in corporate. So I thought it'd be interesting to kind of talk about the two different layers and what might be best, especially for people that are either in their careers now or people that are, you know, just threshers, they're just getting out of college and like, I want to be an entrepreneur, or I feel like I want to go the corporate route. Because I feel like people are getting really caught on the entrepreneur, shiny, flashy thing. It's if you go on YouTube, that's like the first thing you see is like, I quit my job and started a million-dollar company. And like everybody sees that flashy thing, but I don't think they understand how entrepreneurship actually is and what it actually takes to get into it.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's really easy. Everyone's a millionaire until they go to the hospital and don't have insurance. Like, I will probably never not work for a business that doesn't offer health insurance as someone who goes to the hospital once a year for funsies, right? And like for me, that's everything. Truly, and you know, I mean, you my vibe check. I'm a very, I'm a very cautious, I'm a very scared person. I don't want to die painfully or find myself destitute or homeless. So I have to align myself with a corporation that provides me with benefits so that I can ensure if I do need health care, which I often do, I have it on hand and it's not going to put me in the poorhouse. Like what is the statistic? Like some like over, I think it's over 80% of all Americans, this is a very American statistic, uh, only have two months of savings and one trip to the hospital will bankrupt them. So, like my endorsement for corporate is not one of love or like, it is out of necessity.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

That's a really good initial take. And I I think maybe to even take one step back is there's no right or wrong. And we're not the definitive answer on this, but that's my answer. There are things you should consider. Yeah. And I think what you just said there, Anthony, is like that's so important because there is nothing wrong with the stability of taking a corporate job. It it provides you a safe place to earn a guaranteed paycheck where you're not personally liable for the how the company does, for big decisions, for you know, doing anything illegal potentially. Like you are protected by this broad organization that also provides you benefits. You know, you have health benefits, you potentially have stock options. Like, even though that's not a flashy life necessarily to take the corporate career path, it provides many, many amazing things that every human being would find as a necessity, and especially as you get older. I think when you're younger, you're like, healthcare, who needs it? I'm 18 and I can do whatever I want. But as you get older, and I was just talking about my freaking, my my foot hurts because it's probably footwear. And like all that stuff, you're absolutely right. Like with a corporate job, you can just say, Oh, I'm just gonna go, you know, pay my $50 deductible or whatever it is, and I'm gonna see a professional who's gonna give me thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars of treatment because my company subsidizes that for me, which is a huge, huge perk.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

And I have like I have actual family history of colon cancer, all kinds of fun stuff to look forward to later in life. Like, I know I need this, right? Even beyond retirement, I need to have the continuation of benefits. So, you know, I'm planning for long-term health care for me. My wife will live to be 200 years old. I will die at 65 from a preventable disease. You got to think about these things. Like, you really do. And I don't I don't want it to happen, but I'm gonna try and stop it.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah, I think when you're like if you're just getting started, I think you really have to think about the long term. I know it's hard when you're young. You're like, oh, short term, flashy thing, whatever it is. You have to think longer term that in like 10 years, your body will drastically change from where it is now. Your life will drastically change potentially, you know, get married, have kids, move somewhere, you know, your parents are getting older. There will be all these things that happen that is just life. And not having stability, not having a guarantee, while it may seem okay in the short term, you will look at that in the long term and be like, shoot, what was I doing for 10 years before I decided to start an actual career and earn and gain a stable income? Now I feel like I'm really behind because I never did any of that stuff. And I think when you look at like the long term, the macro of it all, I think it's really important that you think about retirement and be like, do I want to work the rest of my life or take risks? Or do I want to have something stable that I can build and gain equity and have something safe and reliable? So that way when I get to that you know stage of my life, I'm guaranteed to be all good to go and I can enjoy, you know, my later years.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

I love that point. And that's honestly something else to really consider is not just health benefit, but retirement benefit. My father, uh, for all of his interesting personality corps got me fixated on the fact that even when I started as a landscaper, I was putting money into a 401k, right? So even my blue-collar career, I was putting money away with the hope that one day I'll retire and be able to pull back from this. And, you know, the first big corp where you and I worked, they had a 401k benefit program where they would match up to, I think it was 3% for a while, and then they stopped matching, which sucked. But I've never stopped taking part of my paycheck and putting it into long-term

Why Corporate Can Still Win

SPEAKER_01 31:40

retirement plan. That's something else a company gives you that you would have to manage on your own as an individual entrepreneur. So you do have to be thinking about like company just this is part of your benefits package. On your own, you need to manage this yourself.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Absolutely. And I think in there are benefits to entrepreneurship. We'll, we'll get to that and kind of the, you know, what we think about, and especially now that I've done this, you know, why my brain went in that direction. But also, I think one of the biggest benefits of corporate is one, like we're talking about in our Discord as we speak. I think, you know, one, you can work a pretty no-thrills job. And while it might not be fun to say, I do IT for an accounting department. Well, that's not like fun and flashy to talk about, and no one cares about that ever. It's still an important job. And you might be able to work for 25 hours a week and the rest of the 15, you can probably goof off and hang out with your friends and you know, potentially even make lifelong friendships. I'm talking about you, Rigatoni Tony. Make maybe even make lifetime friendships with people in your workplace. And then at the end of the day, you close the laptop lead, you don't worry about anything outside of your life at that point. And like that is a blessing in so many ways to just be like, I can just close the laptop and I don't need to care that something's burning down at work or the company's not doing well. I can't even tell you for the first what, maybe I don't know if you'd agree with us. The first five years of my career, like, I didn't care about the macro of how the company was doing. I didn't even know how the macro of the company was doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

When you're at the bottom, it doesn't matter, right? When you're at the bottom, all that matters is like, did I do my job that I was hired for to some level of success this week? Like that's yeah, that's all you gotta worry about.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

And you're surrounded by people that can teach you and things that you can learn, and the stability of even paying for you know further learning if you want, like being able to, you know, pursue a higher level degree or go back to school and get a different degree, they'll subsidize that for you because it's an incentive for the company and retention for you as an employee. And like all that is really, really amazing that you have the luxury to do that. Because in other countries, other areas of the world, that's not something people get to do and ever have the opportunity to do. So while you might see all these flashy things that are like around entrepreneurship and taking big risks, keep these things in mind of like it is really, really amazing that you have the opportunity to join a corporation that can provide everything we're talking about to you.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Agree, agree. Uh, I think that's really the benefits, right? It's it's health, uh, retirement, mentorship, friendship, uh and stability. But I would argue stability is not a given, right? Like, and that's that is my key concern to get back to the vibe check. Like, I don't feel that there is stability stability in corporate long term anymore. But that is the sign of the times, not so much the norm. It didn't used to be that way. It used to be you'd work a job for 30 years, retire, and they'd take care of you and give you a nice going-away party and a bottle of whiskey, and you'd live to be 80. And that was that was life. That is not the case anymore, sadly. So I think there is uh something to be said about stability no longer being a perk. Now it is more of a nice to have if you can get it.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Absolutely. I I think something also, you know, before we get to some of the cons, credibility is so big too. You know, like as you're in your high school years, your college years, you can be part of extracurriculars, you know, whether it be sports, whether it be clubs, whether it be whatever it is. And basically you're showing like I am someone who's committed to something, who was part of a team, you know, someone who gained potentially even leadership skills. If you're a captain or you started a club, like you're showing initiative, and like all that is proof that you could be value, valuable to a corporation too, right? And so, even in a corporation, like getting to put their logo on your resume and their name gives you credibility and makes you valuable in the market. And if you wanted to start something else, it's like that's what I did. I have credibility because I was part of that. And even that name can give you, and like, you know, for a while, I don't know how true it is anymore. But if you had Google or Facebook or Yahoo on your resume, like you were guaranteed work for life for really good money. And just because you had some logos and some names on your resume.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

You could have been the worst Netflix employee, and it didn't matter because two years of Netflix get you a job anywhere, you know? Like that was true. I don't know if it's entirely true anymore. Um, but it it certainly was like there used to be a bit of resume flourish to working for back in the day. It was called Fang. Now it's I don't even know. I don't even know what it is anymore because all the meta, it turned to Mang.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Well, now I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Those aren't the top companies anymore, either. Like between OpenAI and some of the others, like we're knocking people off that list. So yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Actually, maybe it is. We just added more A's to it. You know what I mean? Now it's just like quadruple A's in the middle. Where do you work? Mang!

SPEAKER_01 37:06

One of those. I work at one of those.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Wait, it could be Mango, because you have open AI at the end, so you could just go, Mango.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Well, wasn't the point? It was supposed to be five. It was like the top five companies. What is it now? Do we do we know?

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yeah, yeah, because it was what? It was Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Google, and that was those were the main ones.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Hold on, I'm doing a quick Amazon, so that wasn't double A. It's now I don't even know what it was. Nama. Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Yeah, makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Nama.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Nama.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Nama. So maybe, I mean maybe.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

I think that's true though. I think like there will be certain things etched in history of companies, and having those names on your resume will basically guarantee you a life of work. And that I don't think can be understated enough or overstated enough because like that is basically guaranteeing your future of employment. No matter if you're the worst Netflix or OpenAI or anthropic employee ever, like that doesn't matter. The fact is that you work there, you made it through the interview process, and like you can just flex that into every interview moving forward for the rest of your life. And I can tell you, I've worked with leaders who have hired people just because they had Google on their resume. And they turn out to be really terrible and we fired them after a year. And it's like, yeah, I mean, you probably shouldn't have just hired them because they had a name on their resume. They're the reason Chrome sucks.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

That's why they got fired. But that's important. Like as you think about your future, as you think about your life, like having that credibility builds for a successful future for you because you can use it as leverage. Agree.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

All right, agree. Uh yeah. Oh, I mean, what are the what are the pros of what are the pros of uh entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Yeah. So entrepreneurship, like a lot of people, and this kind of goes to the cons of corporations, is it's that you don't own anything really.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Like you're building something for someone. That seems weird to me, because you are the sole owner.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Well, no, no, I'm talking about uh corporations. Like that is one of the biggest cons of working for a corporation.

unknown 39:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

A big company.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

But as an entrepreneur, the pro is you own everything.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Exactly. Right. Like you it is yours. You own it, it's yours forever. Whether you sell it, whether you get acquired, whether you go public, like that's yours.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Well, it's it's yours until it's theirs.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Yeah, it's yours until it's theirs. Whatever your exit plan is for your business. But I think that's the that's one of the biggest differences. It's like when you work for a corporation, and I can attest to this, I worked eight years at Universal, right? Built some awesome stuff, built an awesome team. When I left, none of that came with me. I own none of that. And what do they do? Didn't steal a laptop? Didn't steal a laptop. I returned all my company assets. I have to say that for legal reasons. Come on, man. I still have some free swag that was given to me personally, so I do own that. Hashtag don't sue me. They are a giant corporation who will find somebody to do my job. I'm not that important, you know, at the end of the day, to the company. Not even the CEO is that important. Like it's gotten to that level where it's like they could just swap someone else and the brand recognition, the company as a whole, as part of NBC, like they are going to be fine regardless of who leaves and when, and that they will just be a part of history. And when you're solo down the chain, like most people are, the people are gonna remember you, sure. Like the people you worked with, the people you trained, the people you hired, the stuff you did. But it's not gonna be something that's like etched in the history books. You're not gonna be like, oh, Michael, at Universal, man, that was something for the history books. We got to teach everybody that. You know, other than people that are in the network and you know. And so I think that's one of the biggest things of like being a business owner, that is your opportunity to fully own success or failure, and it is yours to make whatever you want to make of it.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

I agree. No, and I think that's your opportunity. Uh, I think the the challenge, and I say this as a completely non-entrepreneurial non-business owner, the challenge is really finding success. Am I right? Like I I don't know the percentage, but I have to imagine a lot of small businesses fail and then they find themselves either starting over or going back to corporate. So, what what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Yeah, it it is very true. And I have a certain perspective on it, which I'll share in a minute, but it is something that's not guaranteed. And I think that's one of the biggest differences, is like if you get a corporate job, it's pretty much guaranteed to give you a paycheck. Sure, companies go under all the time, but like again, if you do everything we talked about, you get certain names on your resume, like you're gonna be able to find work. When you run your own business and it's not a big name, and it fails, you have to think about like, was that worth it? Like, I struggled for five years just to figure out something didn't work, and now I gotta go get a soulless job in corporate. It's like you just spent five years building something that potentially became nothing and maybe even set you back towards your retirement goal of whatever it is, and that's a risk, is all it is at the end of the day, right? And I think to put it super simply, and there's so much more to it, entrepreneurship is building something that people want or need. Right? And like, if if you don't build things that people want or need, you're not going to be successful. And you know, that comes out of like you can get all the funding you want, even if you're a hot

Entrepreneurship Risks And Market Proof

SPEAKER_02 43:05

news startup, and we see this all the time like billions of dollars invested into these startups who have zero customers. And then the company fails and they go bankrupt and they don't give their shareholders back any money. And a lot of investment firms are okay with that. You know, they maybe make 10% of a return on their investments over the years, but when you think about hundreds of billions of dollars, that's fine for an investment company. It's not fine for you as an individual who just tried to run a company and then ran into the ground, and then you're not very marketable because nobody knows what your startup was. And then you go and go into these interviews, and you basically have to switch the narrative towards, I did this, here's what I learned, here's what I can, you know, bring of value. You have to really sell what you did, what it was that you built. You also have to explain why it didn't work, which is hard.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Yeah, I remember when you made me read that terrible book. Um One of the things I really hated about the prospect of doing uh any kind of agency was like you are selling a product that doesn't exist for a a broad portion of it. Like you are trying to attract customers and sell based on an idea, not based on anything tangible a lot of the time. And that just that just feels wrong to me uh from like, I don't know, someone someone who is is every step I've taken in my career has tried to lead me to more honest marketing and sales of the product. And like where I am right now, I think is the most honest I've ever been with a product in my my selling of it. It it concerns me greatly that many small businesses are selling something that potentially doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Yeah, absolutely. And and that is the hardest part, especially. Like I run a services business, right? We don't sell a product. And so pretty much right now I'm selling myself, right? Right. But if you're like if you're an individual person who has no credibility, that's really hard. Why would I trust a 20-year-old who dropped out of college to provide me a service? You have zero credibility. You dropped out of college, you didn't even finish the one thing you said, and now I'm supposed to trust you and pay you to provide a service for me. Like what gives you the credibility to do that?

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Well, and and then chances are if you are very young in your entrepreneurship, you need to go seek VC funding, venture capitalist funding, or some kind of take out a bit bank loan, business loan, something to get the money so you can exist while running that business. You you might be a free entity in your business, but you are still owned by the investor at the end of the day. And that itself carries with it risk because you might start to find success and then, hey, we're selling you to Nvidia. Right. I can do this. I'm the investor. Like that's another thing you have to consider is if you can't go it completely on your own, you run the risk of whoever's giving you money pulling the plug or saying, Great, I got an offer, uh, I'm gonna triple my money and you get a nice little payout, go find a new job, go start a new project.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah, absolutely. And like if you are in a fortunate position where your expenses are paid by your parents or whatever, subsidized by where you're living or what you do, then you have more availability to take risks, right? You can live for longer without worry of that, and if you fail, it's okay. But what I would say is it's important you time box those things and you find out if what you're building is going to be something people want or need, ASAP. If you can't prove that, if you can't sell something, if you can't get a sale, and I'm talking dollars, in the first like six months of starting something, you should probably stop because you're not building something people want or need. And you're gonna waste a lot of time building a shiny, flashy thing without ever knowing if people want it. And I've seen a lot of people do this. They go into stealth mode for 18 months, and then they come out of it with this product, and nobody wants it. And you know, the the opposite of that is kind of what you said, which is like that moral dilemma of you sell the thing you want, you build wait lists, you uh put something out there to validate the market and say, do people want this before you go and spend time to build it? And it is risky inherently to do anything like that. But I think the sooner you find out if people are going to pay for it and people give you dollars, is when you know you actually have something and you can pursue it. But it's still risk. There's no guarantee because it's all you. So you could say, oh, I got 10 people to sign up and buy it. Six months from now you have your product, and OpenAI or Anthropic or any of the big companies releases a feature that literally kills your product. That happens every single day to companies.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

So I just pull up some stats. This is from Lending Tree. So uh obviously cite the source, don't trust anything, but 22% of new private sector business in the US fail within the first year. Um, the failure rate escalates over time, with nearly half, 48.6% closing after five years, and two-thirds ceasing operation after 10 years. So, like the it's a coin flip, really.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Yeah, it's a coin flip to your success. Now, I would say, and I'll talk about the approach that I took. Like, there's a lot of pros to owning your own business. You get to determine what your day looks like. I can tell you for the last like five months, nobody tells me what to do and where to go. Like I get to decide that. I can work at any time I want. I can, you know, of course, there's times where I have to, I'm I sell services, so I have to meet clients and I have to, you know, provide certain services that have to be done on their timeline. But compared to what I was doing at Universal, it was like every single day is in 8 p.m. to at least 5 p.m. And then probably meetings later where I didn't really control that. I just knew I had to do it and I had to show up and I had to be there. And I had zero control over that, right? It's like the powers that be decided the general direction we were heading. And I was a cog in the machine that had to do my job to the best of my abilities to get it there. The flexibility you have as a business owner is amazing because I can choose to just go take a day off because I want to, right? In corporation, if you said, hey, it's 9 a.m., uh, my friend just texted me, he's taking a boat out. I think I'm just gonna leave the office and go do it. You're probably gonna get lucky.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah. Good luck. Then you're gonna be blacklisted for the rest of your days as a boat guy. You can just go out and do whatever he wants.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Right. Or you lie to your manager and like, hey, I'm sick, like I gotta go home because I have this thing, and then like then you're stuck in that terrible moral dilemma again of like, that's the wrong thing to do, and it will bite you in the butt. But as a business owner, I can literally just be like, oh yeah, I just had some work that I'll just shift off till tomorrow. I'll make up my hours later tonight, I'll do whatever I need to do to get my deliverables for my clients, but I set the timeline. And so, like, it's extremely flexible that way. Um, another thing I'd say too, and this has been a little bit of an adjustment for me, is like I had a stable paycheck for all of my career. And being a business owner, you don't have a stable paycheck. And so, while it's not like by no means am I saying like I'm about to go bankrupt and you know have to second mortgage my house, I'm doing just fine, but it's something that's it's weird to get adjusted to. Things come in cycles, contracts come in cycles. And the way I set up my company is I am a W-2 employee of my company and it pays me a salary, and so I get a paycheck every two weeks. So I have that consistency now, but it's still like I'm always watching to be like, okay, when's that next contract gonna hit? And as you get employees, which will happen probably sooner rather than later, then I also have to think about my employees. And there's pros and cons. It's like I can like a bit, I can land a big contract, I can bring employees on, but then I have to think about cash flow, right? And I have to be considering what's that next contract in three months? What are the terms on that contract? Isn't that 30, 60, 90 from when we finish the work and make sure my company is not gonna go bankrupt and be able to pay my people? And so it's more responsibility, but it also has a higher reward potentially because I can

Flexibility, Cash Flow, And Benefits

SPEAKER_02 51:25

distribute earnings and paychecks to myself that could far exceed what I've ever earned in corporate. Right. And so it's all up to me to determine what that value is, not a 3% raise every year. I could be like, nah, next year we did so well this year, I'm gonna triple my salary this year. I get to decide that, right? And so it's a pretty cool opportunity to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

I do feel like that's a shared, that is a shared problem/slash opportunity with corporate. The only difference is when the corporation does well, you might get a bonus if you're in sales. When the corporation doesn't do well, you get laid off. Uh, when your personal business does well, you actually have an opportunity to change your income based on the business doing well. When the business doesn't do well, your business dies. So, like the negative is still the same on both sides, but I do think there's more opportunity on the entrepreneurial side.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Right. And also you have more ability to take on more and get paid more. Like in corporate, the reality is you make a salary. If you work 40 hours a week, you work 80 hours a week, you make your salary. Unless, of course, you're in sales and yeah, you have a comp-based structure plan. But as a business owner, it's like I can choose to take this deal and I can go find 10 more, and I can work 120 hours for the next two months every single week, and then I'll take two months off. Like you have the flexibility to do that. And you can be like, I work two months a year, and then I don't work for the rest of the year, and then I'll find another contract for Q1 next year, and the rest of the year will have off. And like that's the opportunity that you have is to be able to find situations like that if you can manage it financially as well. And so it gives you a lot more flexibility.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Right. And what do you do about the benefits?

SPEAKER_02 53:06

So the benefits, there's a couple ways you can handle it. You can, of course, get like a small business, you know, benefit package, which is never as good as corporations, and it almost always costs more than if you're part of a massive corporation. And the reason being is, yeah, if you're a company size like mine and we have one employee, soon to maybe have a few more, go into a big company, like uh some sort of healthcare provider and be like, yeah, we got five people. What kind of prices can you give us? Yeah. It's totally different than working at a megacorp. And it's like, we have 500,000 people. That's our leverage, and that's an that's an advantage for the healthcare company, right? Because they're like, I am happy to subsidize you at a crazy rate to give you really affordable prices for your people. At a small business, you don't have that leverage against healthcare. So you have to pay for, you know, more premium services and it will cost you more. But the fortunate part is if you set up your tax structure, right? You can do that just like you would, you know, for 401k, for uh health benefits, whatever it is, just like a paycheck. It would take the amounts out of your paycheck and then it would go into paying for that plan. And so you can set it up pretty easily to be able to do that, but it will almost always cost more.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Right. So and you have to be, you have to be earning to be able to afford to get the benefits, otherwise, you are going into debt over benefits.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Yeah. And even if you have a salary, you're getting paid every two weeks, like I do. I'm a double W-2 employee of my company. If the company doesn't make money, I don't make money. I mean, my paychecks stop, right? Like regardless, if the business bank account you know goes to zero, I got nothing. I don't get a paycheck that week, right? And so I think those are the things like you have to consider, is it's all on you to be thinking about that. So the opportunity is huge, right? You could massively do way more than you've ever made in your corporate life or ever, you know, running your own company. And especially if you build that for an exit strategy of saying, I built this to a certain dollar amount and then I'm gonna sell, you could also take away a huge, you know, paycheck that you could walk away and never have to work again. So there's a huge opportunity to say, do you want to grow something and build it forever? And this is like a lifestyle business, or do you want to grow something to sell or get acquired, whatever it is?

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Yeah. And I mean, that's the opportunity. Like that is the opportunity. I think we should do an evaluation of profiling. Like who should entrepreneur versus who should be a corporate slave?

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Oh, I like that. I like that exercise. Like what the characteristics.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:47

Do you want to start?

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yes. I would say if you are like me and you have concerns about the future, about your stability, about health, I think it is safer to align yourself with a corporation than to go it alone where you are solely responsible for yourself. I do think there is there is some logic to putting some of the onus onto a larger entity to take care of you, then you take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say another thing is if you have a lot of dependents, you're responsible for children.

unknown 56:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Significant other who may or may not have a job. Your parents, you know, if you have to take care of them financially, that risk tolerance comes in of like, yes, you probably can't afford to take a risk without hurting a lot of other people and potentially putting yourself in a lot of debt. But on the other hand, if all your expenses are paid or you set yourself up financially to take a calculated risk, then going entrepreneurship is likely an option for you.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Yeah. And I I think that's really the thing. I think also there's a little bit of are you able to drive your own success on your own, or do you need a group to help you drive your success? And like I think that goes almost hand in hand with the benefits conversation, right? Like, I need a company to help take care of me. I also need a team to help me be successful versus I can do this on my own, I can shoulder it on my own. I do think, to your point, like people with less dependence and less things relying on them will find it much easier in an entrepreneurial type situation to find success or to shoulder a failure because they don't have that reliance on other things and they're able to kind of weather the storm on their own.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I also think as an entrepreneur, and I can tell you this if you're not good at managing many things, entrepreneurship's not for you. Because every day, every day you're doing everything. And so you can't just focus on like I'm the best back-end programmer ever. It's like, no, no, no. You gotta do sales, you gotta do client support, you gotta do, you know, answers to emails for press releases or marketing. Like you have to be able to market yourself. You have to be thinking about what is your multi-pronged

Who Should Choose Which Path

SPEAKER_02 58:26

media approach to you know, make yourself the domain expert on X and Y topic to target whoever that is. Like, as an entrepreneur, you can't think in one lane. No, you can, of course, you know, you can get business partners who are in it with you and you can play different roles. But regardless, there are so many aspects of you know setting up the tax structure for your company. Like we run an S corporation, so we're not a single member LLC, we're an S corporation for tax reasons. I didn't know what the difference was and why it mattered. I had to learn that, right? And so, like your brain just has to be able to handle the many different things, and you have to be okay living in a little bit of chaos where no one's telling you what to do every day. You have to decide what to do, you have to stay organized, you have to drive things forward.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

That's a good point. And another thing that I took away in those books uh was sales is probably the most important, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, sales is the most important trait and role you can have as an entrepreneur. Because if you cannot sell, it doesn't matter how good your idea is, if you can't get the the why, the who, the how across in a pitch, your business will fail, even if you have like the cure for every disease that ails me.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

Absolutely. Yeah, you could have the best product in the world. Like you could build the next iPhone and it could be the best thing ever. And if people people might use it, and you're gonna be like, holy crap, this is the best thing of the world. I want 10. But in reality, is if you can't market it and you don't know how to sell it, and you don't you aren't willing to get in rooms of big people and be able to like you know find partnerships and join ventures and things like that, like the reality is it's not going to be successful. And so it does take you being willing to do those things. And some people are like, no, no, I just want to like be behind the scenes. And so I think the reality is if you're if you're not putting in the sweat equity into your business and you're not willing to play every role and do whatever it takes to be successful, and you need more guidance in what you do, like if you're that person who's like, I just need someone with me to like nudge me along. The reality is you probably belong better in a corporate career than I yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like, I think a lot of people are team-oriented people and perform better in a group, right? But you got to know yourself. Like you do have to know yourself to make this decision. So I would I would absolutely say for a fresher, before you do anything, it's like look at yourself. Um, what uh we've talked about this before, but one of the books I love is The Unsettled Art of Not Giving an F. And I know this has kind of become oddly, it's become a little bit of a manosphere book I've learned. So now I regret ever recommending it and bringing it up here. But I did find things in that book very helpful for me and my own career development, just to evaluate like, what do I actually want to do? And is it all of these things, or do I want to unburden myself so I can go focus on very specific things? Like, you gotta know yourself before you make any decision. And I don't think Michael or I had that going into our corporate careers. It's something to be figured out over time. But if you're starting out, I don't think it would hurt to have some self-reflection, introspection. And really think long-term, like, what are you trying to accomplish? How do you want to accomplish it? And are you the person to accomplish it?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

Yeah, that's really well said. And I think like the calculator risk thing I keep bringing up is really important. You know, my path was I built credibility. I went into corporate and I learned what I was good at, what I wasn't good at. I made connections, right, with a lot of great people who went on to many different companies, but I also set myself up financially to be able to take a risk and be an entrepreneur. I think internally, like this was always on my path. You know, even looking backwards, when I was a kid, I was like selling things and making things and fixing iPhones and you know, whatever it was that came up. Like I was doing those things in college and so on because I wanted to earn money. And my background is I didn't grow up with a lot of money. And so for me, like financial security was super, super important on my list. And so getting a corporate job in tech provided me financial stability. And then I did the things you said of like you invest in your 401k, you invest in your employee stock purchase program, you make outside investments by no means is this investment advice. You buy houses at the right time, and you know, you you invest in the right things to set yourself up to be able to take a risk. And like what I did is I built credibility, I built connections, and I set myself up financially to say, hey, it's all right if I don't earn any money for six months to a year. You know, we'll be okay. And that's not a luxury a lot of people get to do. But I would say, like, all those things, like there's no way I could have just started this without getting the experience, without getting the contacts, without working in corporate to realize and gain all these skills that I have now that are boding well into this business. And so I think that's a thing you have to like look introspectively and think about. I probably need a little bit more experience than I have to be successful doing this. So, in my opinion, it's build and do things on the side while you're also doing the safe and stable thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

That's a really good point. I think a lot of people, probably to the point of the statistic I made I brought up earlier, look at folks like Zuckerberg, Gates, people who literally built it in their garage, dropped it at college, and became billionaires. That is not normal. That's not even like 0.01% normal, right? Like very, very rare do you, as a young person, create something that becomes this unequivocal money-making success. More often than not, you will fail. Uh, and to Michael's point, like the experience you're going to get working in a corporation can help you nudge those success numbers into a more positive direction, but you have to be able to withstand it, just like Michael was saying. Like, I think that that should be evaluated a little bit too, is like you're not going to be Bill Gates. Like, you're not. Like, I guarantee you, anyone who watches this video will not be Bill Gates. Statistically, just not going to happen. So, like, go in with that at the back of your mind. You will not succeed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Yeah. And I believe in dreaming big, but I believe in taking calculated risks, right? And so I think like if you have this great product idea, build it on your nights and weekends while you're saving your 401k and building your career and gaining you know insights and having that credibility. So that way you have a backup plan if your dream doesn't work out. And when you're young, especially, like and you don't have responsibilities or kids or significant other, you have the time to do that. Also, sure, you could go all in and do your own thing, but then you're alone, you take all those risks, you have zero credibility, you have no experience, you have no contacts. Like, do both if you're young. That's that's my suggestion.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

If you are going to take Michael up on that suggestion, please, please, please talk to your HR department and ensure that you have a non-compete and that you are not building something that the company will secretly own when you go live with it. Sometimes you can actually declare what you are working on privately in your own time and announce that at your current job, and you will be able to own the IP and as your own thing, but have that discussion. This is like actually something you need to talk to HR about before you go off and do. Otherwise, they will find out and they will sue you and they will take you for all you're worth.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

100%. If you've seen the show. Silicon Valley seen this play out where they sent like one email from their corporate work computer that was for the product or startup that they did. And now basically, you know, they were legally owned by that company. Holy. And so, like, never use the corporate hardware for anything you're building, any not even an email, right? Because that can come back legally if you do make it big. And that company could be like, yeah, we're gonna take you for all you're worth.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

And they will they will wire up. Like you need to have the conversation. Say, I am building this. It does not compete with my company. I need a writing that you will not sue me. Like, there is actually in every business, there are uh clauses and contracts you can sign that will allow you to work on independent projects or not. Your business may not allow you to do that. And that's something you need to find out. So do not go start a side project at the same time you're working at a company unless you know for a fact you will keep it and own it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

And don't do it on their hardware. Don't do it anything with don't even use like the mouse they gave you for work. Everything's got to be separate. Whole different workstation. Don't risk it. Don't risk it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

And they they will do the math. They will figure out like, huh? Yeah, huh, this seems this seems like you were working on it. So just that's very important. But a lot of businesses are very cool about it. Just throwing that out there, too. Like a lot of businesses are very cool about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Yeah, you just have to disclose it. That's it. That's usually what it says in your contract. So a hundred percent. So yeah, I think there's pros and cons to both. And my biggest recommendation is take the calculate, take the calculated risk while setting yourself up for future success. I can tell you that if we were not in this financial place, I wouldn't be doing this, right? Because like I want to make sure being financially stable is really important to me and for my wife. And so I think that's something you have to really, really think about is like what what do you want for your future? And if you're not at that place, it's okay. And maybe take the risk later down the line once you save enough for whatever it is to say that's my trigger point. I save this much money, therefore I can take a six-month risk. Now's the time I'm gonna go do it. And worst case, I'm gonna fall back on that corporate career that I started building and just go right back into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

That's that's a good point, too, is like we kind of avoided this topic at all, but some people don't want to work, like myself. So you're trying to think of a path, like how do you get financial independence, retire early, which is the you know, the fire movement. Didn't really discuss that here. We probably need to have you need to go do your own independent research and look at like financial advisors if that's your plan. But there are ways that you can go about doing that too, because maybe you don't want to work. And uh I don't blame you if that's you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Yeah. Work sucks. Yeah, but hey, you can make as much money as you want, and then you could quit early when you're in your 40s, and then boom. You know, maybe you worked a lifeless, soulless job, but you worked in sales and you had incredible commissions and you saved up enough money to hit your target goal, and now in your 40s, you're like, I don't have to work for the rest of my life. That's a pretty awesome spot to be in.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Or like you mentioned the employee stock plan, or you take your you take your earnings and you invest them. Like there are plenty of ways that you can get out of this uh earlier. And it it's all about the calculator risk, like Michael's saying. You have to do that soul searching and figure out what do you want? What do you want?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

Yeah, and then also realize what you have and who you are. I think if you're not willing to look introspectively and be critical of yourself of what you're good at, what you're not good at, I think you're not going to be successful. If you look at those things, you understand what I'm good at, what I'm not good at, and you can take a calculated risk, like you're gonna you're gonna find a way to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Yep, agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

It was fun. That was a fun topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

Good one. Very good one. Good one. Well, I always love when you teach me things because I don't know anything about entrepreneurial ship. So it's it's always good to learn. It's good to learn a thing or three. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

You're starting, just starting on this journey, but happy to share.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

We'll do a check-in in six months because I want to know. Snapshot in time now, six months from now. What have you learned? And I want to learn it too. Absolutely. Well,

Patreon, Discord, And Dino Stream

SPEAKER_01 1:10:05

excited. Thank you as always for bringing your expertise. If folks who are watching want to know more about either of our journeys, where we're going, what we're doing, or talk to a marine engineer, or maybe talk to uh an independent film creator. Uh, you can do all those things if you join our Discord. Michael said earlier, it's in your show notes. Go check it out. You know what else you could do? You can sign up for our Patreon because we are officially Cashflow Positive, and that's a pretty cool thing. For the longest time, this has been an independently funded by myself podcast, and now it is funded by you, the listener. We're kind of like public broadcasting, but way less informed and way less professional. So thank you to our sponsors who keep us, keep the lights on, really, for this pod. And if you'd like to help, every penny that we earn goes back into the pod itself. We do uh what is it, private, not private, sponsored content. It's for uh Patreon subscribers only. You can find a link to that in the show notes as well. And if you don't want to give, why wouldn't you? But if you don't want to, that's fine. You'll never receive. You'll never receive, except you'll get more episodes. I mean, you will. You will receive episodes, uh, but you could help us by sharing these episodes with people. Maybe you know someone who's thinking about going into entrepreneurialship. Share this episode with them. Make sure they skip the first 20 minutes. Uh you don't want to hit them into my therapy. Like, skip that. Give them a timestamp, say, hey, start listening right when Michael starts talking, and you will do a good thing. So share the pod, give to the pod if you can, and join the Discord. That's all we ask of you. It's not, it's not much. It's a pretty easy ask.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

I love it. Share with your friends, share with your loved ones. Also, we've got a gaming stream coming up. So if you're watching this live, it is coming up on Friday. So tell your friends. The last one was a hit, and I'm sure this one will be just as fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

And we will be.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

So I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:57

Yes. Michael, who is our theme park expert, succeeded in producing a successful theme park in Rollercoach Tycoon 2. So we were upping the ante and making him create a park full of dinosaurs that are looking to eat the guests. We will see how he does in round two. Can the streak continue? I hope it doesn't, but that's just me. I I want to see some people get eaten. It's my goal here. I do too. I want to see some of these actually crash and birds. I'm the dude in the Hawaiian shirt carrying the barbersol. That's all I'm saying. Like, I am gonna cause this part to go under. Yeah, that's that's my goal. I'm gonna be watching now. You better not wear that shirt on Friday. Oh, I'm wearing the shirt on Friday. Dinosaur's giving free. All right, we'll share.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

Oh, it's it's coming. It's coming. I gotta I gotta store that in Dino DNA. That's a pod. We are way long. We seem to do this more and more now. Uh, hour and 12 minutes. God bless. Thanks as always for your listenership. We appreciate you being with us, whether you're live or you're listening to the recording. You're the best. As always, I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. And you're on mute. We will see you next week. No, we'll see you on Friday for the Dino stream.