SPEAKER_01: 0:03

Now I can fast forward all the way from the industrial revolution all the way to the computer. And there's about eight points of technology advancing so far ahead of the generation that came before it that it freaked everyone out. And guess what? If you look up the headlines from all those generations prior, it's the same exact language. It's people being in fear that they are going to be pushed to the side, they're going to be homeless living under a bridge because machines and robots will be doing everything. Today we're talking about AI replacing a generation of young men. It's been phrased: young men today are the most replaceable generation ever. The narrative online, it's been happening for a while, is young men with no career, no life experience, no opportunities for romantic relationships. We're seeing a decline in making friends. And now, Rich, we're adding the world of automation and AI. And that's what has this narrative going on that they could be the most replaceable generation ever because everything is automated and they have nothing to offer. I was doing pre-show research and I was able to pull out a line that 67% of Gen Z men report feeling economically disposable, according to research. The truth about young men being replaced in a world of automation. Let me ask you a question, Rich. What do you believe is the best line of defense for a generation that feels already replaceable in a world of automation?

SPEAKER_00: 1:39

The robots are coming, just they're they're cooked.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42

We're done here. We should leave. Let me get out of here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

Yeah. Show over. Yeah, exactly. Nah, man. I I really feel like young men need to understand what their self-IP is, right? What their intellectual property is. That's sort of like your communication style, your courage, your authenticity, your physical presence, your integrity. These are all things that AI can't replace. And I think that there's sort of like a mental reshift that needs to happen with these young guys, where they sort of think of AI like us versus them. And it should really be us with them in the sense that this is an opportunity to sort of use tools and automation to 10x your productivity. So if you're not using AI today in any capacity, you're already falling behind, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

I like that. And it should be said that you come from a world of technology, that is the main source of your business. Uh, we'll get into what you do professionally later and how that's affecting even your career and my career. And I also work in a very digital technology-driven business, which is marketing and the music business. But I like that reframing, Rich. You're saying there really isn't anything we could do about technology moving things forward. So just be prepared by understanding how to use the new tools that are being given to you. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00: 3:06

Yeah, you have to, right? And I think AI naturally is going to transform every single industry in one way or another. So learning to adopt different AI technologies is only going to help you become a better student, a better worker, a better coder, like whatever it is that you do in your field, it's just going to help you multiply your output and your productivity. I think going against AI and saying and being reluctant to learn how to prompt, learn about Chat GPT or Gemini or Llama or all these LLMs, it's like, bro, the world is transforming and you have to want to transform with it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Yeah, listen, the one thing that kind of makes me have a moment of concern is not what you just said. I obviously believe that. And and to be honest, if anyone was at risk, it's gonna be people that are a little bit older who don't know how to use these tools. So I could easily make an episode that's like any man over 35 is the most disposable employee in the open market. So listen, you can position anything into a point of fear. We've done episodes like that in the past about how people take advantage of headlines to create fear, and then it makes you live in a whirlpool of a cascade effect where everything you see and look for online perpetuates that fear. So I want to get into a more specific part of this conversation, and that's an entire generation of men feeling replaceable. Like I said earlier, seven out of every 10 men feel economically disposable right now. That's not because they're weak, that's not because they're lazy, that's because they feel replaceable, Rich. They feel more replaceable than ever. And we've done enough episodes to know that it's not just about AI. AI is just the last jingle piece that you put on top of the stack that made everything come crumbling down. And I feel like a lot of that fear is compounding. But my question to you, Rich, is like, what's your advice right now to a young man under 24 years old? I mean, your son is a teenager. What would you tell him if he came to you and basically told you that he thought the world didn't need him?

SPEAKER_00: 5:14

What would be some advice? I think it's partly an identity issue. I think you need to understand that's the IP of a human versus an AI. And AI is not sentient, and AI has no feelings, and AI has no personality, and AI has no judgment. These are all things that a human being does have. And you spoke about this on an older episode where we were talking about learn what your competitive advantage is, right? Yep. In this episode, we're saying part of your competitive advantage to not feel being replaced by AI is exactly what you already possess, which is your human characteristics, which AI can't duplicate, right? So understand what those things are for you and then double down on them.

SPEAKER_01: 6:01

There is a phrase that I heard and I love it, and it's very relevant for this conversation, and it has to do with competitive advantage. And I'm glad you brought that up, Rich, because that is one of the greatest cheat codes in my life, is that I personally have never tried to beat anyone at anything that I wasn't already good at, and I had an advantage in. So the phrase is what's the best way to beat Bobby Fisher, the world's greatest chess player at chess, is just not play him in chess. That's the only way you could beat him. I'll simplify it and modernize it for a younger generation. What's the best way to beat Anthony Edwards in basketball is to play him at anything other than basketball. If you swim in a pool full of sharks and you're trying to survive, it's irrelevant because you don't belong in water and you're trying to win something that somebody is already a master of that domain. So what Rich is saying is pretty simple. It's like efficiency, automation, calculation. An LLM is a learned language system. It basically takes all this data, it compresses it in a matter of milliseconds. The same way people used to do math by looking at a giant whiteboard and literally physically going through every numerical that's a version of what an LLM is. Now I know I have our computer nerds here, and they're gonna say it's not a calculator. I know that. It doesn't have the ability to have its own thought or its own objectives. You input, it outputs. So why would you, as a person that's young and gaining a profession, why would you want to compete with a computer at what it's already good at and what it's going to get better at? Your job is to find a competitive advantage by doing things that you know it's not going to be able to replicate anytime soon. And we're gonna get into that. We will get into a nice list of uh actionable advice of things that we personally feel like a younger man should be doing in this era of automation that would keep him competitive. But more importantly, Rich, I just want to say something before we transition to that. I believe you cannot automate aura. You cannot automate human judgment in real time. I think those two things are two points that I wanted to make early. Aura meaning the person you are, how you present yourself in real life. And judgment in real time is having the ability to understand information well enough to know what to do in a split second. I think those are two things that will give you an advantage as a young man right now, just to kind of start off the show.

SPEAKER_00: 8:39

Yeah, and exactly what you just stated is the realization that I came to when I felt like AI was going to replace my job. So I'm a cybersecurity engineer by trade. And when AI first hit the scene, it was doing a way better job of analyzing threats, finding vulnerabilities, uh detecting anomalies, finding malicious activity. It was just doing much better job than any existing tool or human could possibly, you know, analyze. And I was in fear, bro. For a couple of months, I was like, oh shit, like, am I gonna have a job in five years? What I quickly learned was no, these tools are actually to our advantage. And where my competitive edge comes into play is I can take this information and this data that AI does a much better job of doing than than I can. And I can articulate this to senior leadership, I can articulate this to stakeholders, to our CFO to give me more budget to then go out and purchase more tools. And that's my competitive advantage. The AI tool is only going to output very structured information. That information is not digestible in a human format to stakeholders who don't understand technology per se, right? These are business leaders. So that's where I found myself to become the liaison between what the AI is outputting and generating for us, and how I can translate that into business terms that the senior leadership can understand. And that sweet spot is where I found that that's my competitive edge. And I encourage anyone in a particular situation, whether they're in tech or marketing or any other field, to find that competitive edge because that's going to help you in the long run.

SPEAKER_01: 10:30

Yeah, Rich, and I want to unpack that a little bit more because obviously I work in marketing. And if you did, if there were any lists of the most targeted industries where uh there will be mass layoffs and there will be um older, higher salary guys and women that will be replaced. I'm primed for the target of uh what automation and AI is going to replace. But with enough research and enough understanding of these tools, I wouldn't say I'm not worried. Obviously, you want to be concerned enough that you make a decision to prepare yourself for it. But I'm excited. And it's basically what you just said. I'm excited to see what comes next. It's not going to be the end of marketing, it's going to be an evolution of marketing and everything that goes into identifying a customer, what they want, what they need, and then getting them that product. Business and the world of business and the world of employment is a very simple structure when you really lay it down to its first principles foundation. It's a buyer and a seller. It's a product that people want and a product that people are willing to purchase. All my job is connecting the dot between buyer and seller efficiently enough where the person who is selling the product can make a return on their investment. So I respect what's to come because I am researched enough and educated enough to know that I need young men right now to go into their LLM chat GPT machine, their Google Gemini machine. And I want you to look up something called the Industrial Revolution. It's in the way, way back machine. It's in black and white. People used to work just manual labor. They used to literally build everything by hand. And every now and then there would come up on innovation and it would be like a horse and carriage, uh a vehicle that pulls things along. It was very low-level automation for very low-level non-thinking tasks. And some bright young men, predominantly in the United States, who became very, very rich because they created wealth, were able to capitalize on the Industrial Revolution. And it turned a lot of bullshit, monotonous, manual labor, back breaking tasks into easier-to-do tasks at high volume. Now I can fast forward all the way from the industrial revolution all the way to the computer. And there's about eight points of technology advancing so far ahead of the generation that came before it that it freaked everyone out. And guess what? If you look up the headlines from all those generations prior, it's the same exact language. It's people being in fear that they are going to be pushed to the side, they're going to be homeless, living under a bridge because machines and robots will be doing everything. Yes, a version of that is true. But if you're not educated enough on the subject, which I don't say Rich and I are like the biggest experts, our expertise is helping young men. I just want to get them away from that feeling and that thought process of knowing or feeling that they are the most replaceable generation ever. That's such an intense way to look at this shit. And I respect it. I respect it that there's fear there, but I do want them to know that they can easily pivot and adjust for what's to come, like people that have adjusted and pivoted the 200 years that preceded them.

SPEAKER_00: 13:51

Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned the that context of like the industrial revolution and sort of that transition when the assembly line came in, and that's how we got cars and everything. Because back in the day, what that did was it automated monotonous jobs, right? Things that could be repeatable. And that's exactly what's happening today with AI and sort of like the digital revolution. I bucket this in three phases, right? I think phase one, there are jobs that AI will replace, no doubt about it. I think there's jobs that AI will transform. And then there's jobs that AI cannot replace. And I actually have a quick list, Jess, that I could read off. Yeah, yeah, please. So jobs that AI will replace is basic fundamental jobs like data entry, basic level one customer support, basic coding, routine legal contract reviews, low-skill editing. There's software out there like Opus Clips, you know what I mean? Where you just feed it a couple clips and it and it outputs uh a bunch of videos for you. The jobs that AI will transform is jobs like I'm working in, like cybersecurity, software engineers, right? Teachers, right? Uh an AI teacher can sort of help be your coach, but if you're facing a bully, you know what I mean? Like an AI is not gonna teach you how to combat a bully. Only uh the human element of a physical teacher can help you do that. And even marketing, right? I think AI will transform marketing, it'll help make marketers better with giving them more data insights into different marketing campaigns for them to leverage. And jobs that AI can't replace, I feel like it's all physical manual labor. AI can't do plumbing, AI can't be an electrician. Like if you do HVAC, if you do any sort of like trade job, your job is safe, right? So I think it's important to understand the difference. There's basic level jobs, there's jobs AI will transform, and there's jobs that AI can't possibly touch because there's just there's no on-ramp for that type of transition. I think I say all that to say it sounds harsh, just, but I feel like in this day and age, there's no room for basic. Yeah. You can't just go out and say, I'm gonna be an accountant, right? Like, or I'm gonna be a legal assistant. Like all these like lower level jobs, AI can do very, very well. So I think we're at a point in time in society where you need to learn a skill and a trade, and you need to be the best in that field, right? Because anything basic will be replaced by AI.

SPEAKER_01: 16:35

Yes, and I'm glad you said that. And I do want to share a story that happened to me last week. It had to do with Waymo. And I'm sure you know what Waymo is in LA and and in San Francisco and a lot of major cities, it is the new form of transportation. And it is quickly either replacing or cutting away a lot of jobs from Uber drivers. And eventually it's gonna be a form of transporting goods. And when you want to go places, you can just put something in a box and just send that shit in a Waymo. This is inevitable. Why would a corporation pay an Uber driver when it can just have an automated vehicle that has pattern matched the same 20-mile radius, and it's not gonna go outside of that radius and it can go from point A to point B. I know that sounds insensitive, and Rich and I are businessmen, so there is like this detached from human sympathy angle we got going on here, but we're not fucking savage beasts. We just understand the truth that is evolution. If you do not adapt, you will die. The same way that's for human nature, it's the same way it is for business. No one's gonna sit around and wait for something to fix itself when something out there already has improved your market. I have two stories in mind that literally happened in the same one-hour window. One was it's it was raining in LA for the first time like all year, and it was raining for five days straight. If you've never lived in LA, you have to understand LA doesn't do rain very well because the city's not designed for it and the people are not fucking designed for it. So I call an Uber because that's more impulsive for me. I always call an Uber instead of a Waymo, but I have changed that after this story. Uber driver pulls up, he's three blocks away from me. I keep texting him, hey, I'm on the other side of this unit that I live in. He's arguing me over text. I cancel. I call another Uber. I get the same guy. He pulls up, he finally finds where I'm at. I get in the Uber. This dude is basically talking shit because I canceled his ride and I rebooked it. He was like, Oh, I bet you didn't think you're gonna see me again. I was like, bro, that's cool. Like, I was just trying to find an Uber that can actually, he was like, Yeah, man, that's the shit with people these days. Like, they don't, they're not patient. He's giving me consejo, like, like giving me life advice while I'm in his Uber. Yeah. So I'm already tight because I'm late to the DMV because I'm trying to get a real ID because I'm traveling for the holidays. Anyway, I have that episode. The minute I get out of the Uber, the dude's like, he didn't say nothing. I didn't say nothing. I just walk out. I get to the DMV, I'm missing one piece of paperwork. The DMV clerk, first of all, I waited an hour when I had an appointment. Get to the DMV clerk. This dude is literally not looking to help me in any way possible. I could tell he had a shit day and I'm going back and forth with him. And he's like, You're missing a main document. I said, Okay, I just handed you a folder with 20 pieces of information. What am I missing? He was like, That's not my job to tell you what you're missing. You should have read the information that was emailed to you.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

Welcome to the DMV.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

Back to back, Uber driver that didn't want his job, and DMV clerk that is in a business that has zero competition that didn't want his job either. Point being, I went back home in a Waymo and I couldn't help but to think to myself I cannot wait until that Uber driver finds what he really wants to do with his life because he's definitely not driving cars. And I cannot wait until somebody fucking replaces the DMV with. An automation process that can be simplified because that guy that was sitting at that front desk had a shitty day, and I empathize with him because we all have those. But he don't want to be, he didn't grow up wanting to be a DMV clerk either. And I believe in my heart of all hearts, being positive about automation and bringing this back to young men that feel this base fear about the job market is that what you just said, Rich. Hopefully, automation and AI get rid of all the jobs that literally nobody wants to do anyway. And hopefully it allows to give you the freedom and the baseline information that you have on your phone now, endless, endless information to go and discover what it is that speaks to your spirit and is employable and can make you some money. I wish everyone can be highly engaged with what they do for a living and how they make money, or be excited about what they do and what how they make it. I know that's utopian and it's not me living in a reality, but you know what also is not living in a reality? Punching in every day, doing a job that you absolutely fucking despise.

SPEAKER_00: 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

Automation's gonna take care of that because if it's monotonous and it doesn't require having much brain cells, a machine's gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

Yeah. Bro, I remember a funny story. I was actually in LA. I think I was visiting you, but we were definitely hanging out out there, and uh I saw an autonomous like food delivery cart on wheels for the first time, and you gave me the whole breakdown, and then you followed it up with, yeah, they they haven't figured out how to keep the bums out of like AI didn't know how to keep the bums out of breaking into them shit. Yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 21:39

Crow crowbarring them open, kicking them over, yeah. That little autonomous vehicle had to deal with reality for like a year.

SPEAKER_00: 21:47

Yeah, I mean, we say it jokingly, but that's the difference, right? Like you can program AI to do all these monotonous jobs that people don't want to do until you need a control for a human element that you didn't factor for, right? Exactly, bro. So AI can't block a bum from crowbar like his little food cart. Like, it's just not designed for that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:09

Yeah, Rich, the the one thing that I wanted to discuss, and it wasn't on our original notes, but I'm curious to know what you feel. I want to say that because I have a deep understanding for how these algorithms work and how marketing works, my gut tells me is that a lot of these young guys are projecting their own extinction based on all the content that they consume every day. And I think AI conveniently fits into that narrative of, well, I don't have a lot of friends, I don't see any potential for myself in making money. I feel already like the world is moving on without me and I don't exist. And this idea that you already feel like lonely and isolated and disconnected from the world. I think when you just add automated jobs and automation of the world, that's where you get a lot of this candor of the most replaceable generation ever. And my preventative medicine for that is I think you have to disconnect from this type of content because you're living in a dystopia that is giving you this doomer's mentality. It is the equivalent of an old person, 75 years old and older, sitting down and watching Fox News all day. This fear has you paralyzed. And I want to be clear that anything you consume is going to conveniently fit into the narrative you already believed if you don't understand how algorithms and uh information being put in front of you works.

SPEAKER_00: 23:43

Yeah. And listen, I remember when we were going through our ideation phase for building a platform. And before we got to the final version, which is this platform we're building failures podcast, we asked ourselves, like, is whatever we're building, can that be replaced within the next five years? Yeah, we did say that. And what we quickly realized is like, no, because the show is centered around lived experiences. It's about, you know, our scars, right? Failures that we've been through. That can't be replicated via AI, right? The there's there's something unique about the human element and the art of storytelling and the art of having human presence and having emotional intelligence, sharing real life experiences, yeah. Yeah. And to your point, I think part of the disconnect and the identity issue that a young man feels, it's like part of the problem is you're consuming this content, which is probably partially already AI generated to begin with, right? And you get sucked into this like AI information matrix, and you forget to go outside. You forget to have lived experiences, you forget to phone a friend, go out to a concert, just live in the moment, right? Everything is recorded, everything is being monitored, and that causes, I feel, identity issues, and ultimately results in you feeling like you could be replaced by some sort of like AI system. So I think there's certainly a mental reframing that needs to happen where you need to understand that AI is here to stay, AI is not your enemy, AI is your friend, it's your co-pilot, it's your companion, it's the ability for you to take a tool, right? A virtual assistant and 10x whatever it is that you want to output. If your dream is to be an award-winning author, right, and you use an LLM to create your your first book, you're 10xing your your skill with using that LLM, right? You're you're using it to your favor, you're using it to accelerate your your dreams and your goals. And that's what everyone should be doing is using these co-pilots, these virtual assistants to further your your goals and your missions in life.

SPEAKER_01: 26:09

I'm glad you said that. And that would be number one for our actionable advice. It's accept that the new tools are here to stay. And we should just look at them as tools until they do otherwise. It's a mental reframe. You choose if you want to live in hell or if you want to live in a bright future that the opportunities are unlimited. Think about it. If the housing market is shut out because old people won't sell their homes and they're buying more homes, if the job market is frozen because people who have had jobs for the last 40 years are not giving up their jobs, what do you think new tools do for both of those categories? Is they create fresh opportunity. Wealth is the creation of new opportunity, new information, new technology. It's almost like you wanted your own tree and you were looking in the forest, and there's not one piece of fresh green land for you to plant the seed so you can grow a tree. Guess what Rich just said to you? There is an unlimited world of fresh green land because we don't know what the fuck is gonna happen. And whatever was successful and valuable last year, no longer valuable, no longer as valuable as it was for the last 30 years. So you can sit paralyzed in your room, scared, believing everything you see on the news that it's over. That is confirmation bias on steroids. If you already believe that the world was doomed, the algorithm is going to keep feeding you information that the world is doomed. But if you're looking at the way Rich and I are looking at it, and we're older, I see nothing but green pastures, Rich. I see nothing but new opportunities. I see a great world where new rich people will pop up all over the world because everyone has access to the same tools and unlimited information. So you choose to live the hell that you want to live in, but I don't. And I really think that first piece of actionable advice is foundational. If you're asking me, Justin, Rich, what can we do to be irreplaceable in a world of automation? Actionable advice number one. Accept that the new tools are here to stay and they are opportunities. They are not threats. That is your mental reframe, actionable advice number one.

SPEAKER_00: 28:27

Yeah, we've reiterated this a couple of times, but I think two is just specialize in what makes you you, right? Your story is your IP. Um, your perspective is your competitive advantage, and your experience is your brand. This is not something that AI can replace. So stand true to those components.

SPEAKER_01: 28:46

Absolutely. Uh, actionable advice number two, Rich. I'd say we mentioned it earlier, but we should get into it. I actually stole this mind frame from you, and I've implemented it in my own life. So thank you for being a good friend in my life. Educate yourself. When the industry changes and new things present themselves as hurdles, go ahead and get yourself a certification. Go ahead and go buy that book. Go ahead and uh sign up for that course. If it's legit, learn new skills, educate yourself because these tools are here to stay. This technology is here to stay.

SPEAKER_00: 29:20

Yeah. And if you think about the evolution of AI, it's expanding, bro, and it's growing fast. Like now there's with the introduction of Angentic AI, which is basically autonomous AI, right? Like you train it with all these tasks, and you basically hit start, and it just goes out and does all that for you. Think about how much time you can save if you're somebody who, let's say, does market research for a living and you spend eight hours a day just scouring the internet for information, and you have the opportunity to leverage a Gentic AI and build a market research tool where you just click start and in a couple minutes you'll have eight hours of work delivered to you via email or in a place where you could download it easily. Now you're saving yourself time, and time is currency, right? Like now you could go on and do other things with that time that you're saving because you knew how to leverage AI properly. So this is what I mean, bro. Aside from understanding what your competitive advantage is, is like don't get left behind. Understand that AI is here to stay, it's evolving. And the more you understand it, learn about it, and evolve with it, the more you can add on to your competitive advantage because not only are you strong about what your competitive advantage is as a human, but you're also a lethal weapon because you understand AI and you know how to leverage it to your advantage.

SPEAKER_01: 30:46

Rich, I love what you just said, and I want to share a real fucked up version of a Warren Buffett quote that I think I remember verbatim. And the quote is for the man who knows he needs a tool and hasn't purchased it is already paying for that tool. What does he mean by that, Rich? He means that if you know you're building a house and you have every part other than the hammer and the nail, the longer you wait to go and buy that hammer and nail, the more expensive it's becoming for you because of what? Because you're wasting time and you have everything other than the tools you need in order to advance your home building. So the man who knows he needs a tool and doesn't purchase it is already paying for that tool because you're paying for it in lost time. And I think that's a very simple parable, but it's so brilliant when you look at any tool in the competitive market. So I think we've pretty much beat those two points to death. Accept that the new tools are here to stay, and you have to mentally refrain away from fear and go into more of an opportunistic, excited perspective. Because you ain't got no motherfucking choice anyway. Because if the robots come to take over, you better be ready to fight or better be ready to communicate with them. That's all I really can tell you. Actionable advice number two is educate yourself, learn how to use the new tools. Uh, Rich, do you have a number three?

SPEAKER_00: 32:15

Number three, I think, is understanding that roles matter with this transformative AI, meaning that AI can't be a father. AI can't be a leader, AI can't be a mentor, AI can't be a builder, a creator. There's these specific roles that are reserved for human beings that AI can't replace. So understand that, you know? And I think the specific distinction is that AI, it's task value and transformative value, right? So AI completes task, but a human inspires, leads, shifts energy. These are all things that AI can't replace.

SPEAKER_01: 32:57

Bro, I love that. You know I love that. You're speaking my language, right? Like with that one. Because why do we watch competitive sports? Why do we watch MMA? Why do we watch Game of Thrones? Why the fuck would I sit in a conference room with 10 people and follow the lead of a chairman that has been elected by the board of advisors and investors for a major company? Because I believe human beings have insane capabilities of taking a whole bunch of nuanced information in real time. I'm not debating that an LLM can't do that. But what a human can do is they have human discernment. They can take all that information, have a deep understanding for it, and then apply what's happening in real time right in front of them. They know what their executive staff is capable of, they know what the market needs, they have impulse and intuition, and they have something that a computer doesn't have. They have IRL real life experience, and they mix that with wisdom. Wisdom is just knowledge tested in real life. Wisdom is your grandmother telling you, if I were you, I wouldn't date a woman like that. How do you know, grandma? You're 70 years old. Look, I don't know a lot, I know how to cook, and I know people because I've been alive for a long time. That girl you're talking to is no winner. How does grandma know that, Rich? Because she has wisdom, she has impulse, human intuition. She's been outside touching grass before your fucking father was itching in anybody's ball sack. You're in a world of human beings. You still have to conduct and live in a world of human beings. So leadership roles are reserved for human being leaders. Men and women. A robot can only guide you as much as a GPS can guide you. But where you decide to go after that is really on you. So, Rich, I love that you brought that up in a very civil way. Parental figures, two grown men doing a podcast with their own money and not making any profit. That's a leadership role. We decided to jump ahead and help people out. Yes, you can ask a robot all these questions and they're gonna give you all the right answers.

SPEAKER_00: 35:20

Bro, honestly, I don't want to be too sympathetic. I feel like we got the ability to live pre-LLMs and during LLMs, right? Before, if we wanted to research something, we had to Google the shit out of something for hours. We had to listen to an audiobook. Yeah, bro, you could prompt Chad GPT or Gemini or Grok, and in 2.5 seconds you will have your answer. Like, don't complain about not being able to learn something, you know what I mean? Or not getting the information you need. Like, you have this incredible supercomputer at your disposal. And to feel that this gives you fear of being replaced, it just shows that there's a low level of confidence in yourself and you have identity issues. Bro, I think you need to strip yourself away from that and understand that you have a tool that is a supercomputer that can help you learn anything and everything that you want to learn to become a better human. Why would you be in fear of that? Use that to your advantage. I just I don't want to give them a cop-out, Jess. I feel like this tool is incredible. You have to learn how to use it to your advantage. Because when we were coming up, shit was a lot different. We didn't have LLMs. We were having to Google Yahoo. Like, I don't want to date ourselves, but the way you and I exchanged information back in the day was a lot different. You would have to go off for two weeks and come back with a lot of information, and so would have I. Versus now we can find the answer to anything we want within 10 minutes. So I just want to make that point clear that we're in a different time in society. I love everything you said, and it's perfect.

SPEAKER_01: 37:02

I don't have anything to add. Men lack confidence, and they're finding another reason to not have more confidence in themselves. You're saying this little chat box you could ask anything to is I don't even know if a golden era is a proper way to describe it. It's beyond a golden era. It is like a platinum iridium era. This is it. There's no point of return. You're getting the most information humanly possible. But here's the problem that right there creates this false idea of perfection. They feel like they have to get it right now because they have all the information. And we brought this up in previous episodes. And this is actionable advice number five. You have to understand that in this lifetime that you're living in, and let's say you're 15 right now or 20 years old right now, luckily you're gonna live another 80 years, 100 years. All right, cool. You got that. In the next 100 years, you still have agency over your own life. And we discussed this in previous episodes. Do not ever get it fucked up. The world is yours to conquer or to be defeated by. So you have to understand that even in a world of automation where you feel like everybody's against you and you're the most replaceable generation ever, cool. We accept your bullshit ass excuse. But you have to accept that you have agency, you have the autonomy, you have the will and the willpower to push back. You are a fucking human being. You're not a computer, you are not a Roomba that gets told to sweep a room and go back into your pod. You are a living, breathing human being, bro. Having the spirit, freedom, and ability to push back and not follow rules is what makes you a human person in comparison to an AI. An AI, Rich, doesn't have that autonomy. It can tell you go fuck yourself if it really wanted to, but it wouldn't know why it's saying that. It doesn't have a central spirit. I know about AGI, I know about superhuman intelligence, I'm not a fucking idiot, but we're not there yet. This computer and you are two very different things. You have the ability to push back and say, I don't accept the course that I am on. I have human will, autonomy, and agency. I will determine my own destiny. That is what the advantage you have. So when you look at the world that way, now you have one of the greatest tools ever known to man at your fucking fingertips. What are you gonna do with it? That right there, it got me excited. I I want to climb a mountain right now. Like that, like, how do you not look at this shit and you're not excited?

SPEAKER_00: 39:42

Damn, bro. I love everything you said. And you know what that made me think of was that to be honest, I've fallen for this too is just the pursuit of perfection when it comes to using the LLMs, right? It's very easy for you to fall into like. Like the Chat GPT matrix as you're prompting it and it giving you five decisions and then 10 decisions, and then you sort of prompt it to the point where it's making decisions for you. And you also don't want to fall into that matrix either, because then you start to lose the competitive advantage that is you. Yes, bro. Right. So it's a fine line, right? Use it to your advantage, but also don't go down the rabbit hole of seeking perfection or or the perfection of what you think an LLM thinks is perfection. Because that's bro. The problem is these LLMs, you gotta understand if you peel back the systems, these LLMs are just doing pattern recognition, right? They're taking in words, inputs, and prompts and just associating words together and outputting what it thinks the best outcome, the best predictive analysis of your prompting is. It doesn't really know what the best decision is for you, right? Don't take everything that this LLM says literal, prompt it, gather information, but ultimately add your human element to it and make decisions based on your own reality.

SPEAKER_01: 41:11

Rich, you nailed it. You said the key word for you. It's compiling the world's data. Every Reddit thread, every Quora query, every YouTube uh transcription, books, textbooks. It is taking a consensus of everything in the world that it thinks is the right mathematical problem. That shit works for scientists. That shit works for the cash register at target because you need to get back every cent that you didn't spend because it has to calculate it doesn't work for you because you only know what the fuck you want and what you may potentially want, and you have to have the ability and the taste level and the human judgment to look at 700 pieces of information and pull out the three that are most relevant to you. All that device can do is put in front of you what is average, it's up to you to take it and select and curate what is true to you, and then go out there and take action. So I love that we're getting into this point of the conversation, Rich, because this is what I feel the most strongly about. I have actionable advice number six, which is a bit nuanced, but bear with me. I believe human aura can't be automated. What do I mean by that? I'm a marketing guy. I'll try to break it down. When you go out into the world and you touch grass, you get a unique opportunity to discover who you are when you're amongst your friends, when you're amongst beautiful women, when you're amongst other people, bullies, the world. The world shapes you in real time. So your aura kind of comes from how you react to the world. All those little weird idiosyncrasies that make you you, that make your friends laugh at your jokes, or make your classmates laugh, that is what makes you special. A computer cannot do that. Uh LLM cannot do that. I know Justin has always kind of been Justin because I've been this way since we were in middle school together, Rich, in high school. I've always had this personality that brought people to me or pushed people away from me. And that is my aura. Rich, I don't know if you have a story off top or an energy about yourself that has always been consistent since you were in high school, but I would love it if you shared what made you unique and how that's worked for you in current days.

SPEAKER_00: 43:46

Yeah, I mean, listen, I've always sort of carried this like stoic demeanor. I've always been someone that's highly curious. And um the area where we grew up was sort of like not the easiest, right? It was sort of rough upbringings. You had to be, you had to have real tough skin. And there's a lot of gang members and a lot of bullies for sure. Yes, yes. And and if you were a weirdo, you were gonna get exploited for sure. Yeah, and deep down I was like nerdy, and I didn't know how to fully express who I was in a world full of gangsters, you know what I mean? So the the way I manipulated my upbringing was I used a computer, I learned how to make music and production, and now made beats for all the hood motherfuckers that were rapping, and that was my way to get cool points and not get beat up, you know what I mean, and sort of like be protected. But that was my way of keeping myself safe, right? Like there was no AI to teach me, like in this particular area where we grew up, like how to handle and maneuver different situations. I just thought to myself, if I'm resourceful to these people, I won't get beat up. Or or at best case scenario, they'll protect me, right? Yeah, man. That was part of my competitive advantage that I just learned early on. Like, how can I be resourceful to the people around me so I can survive in this like rough environment?

SPEAKER_01: 45:15

Yeah, you gotta be courageous, you gotta be authentic and embrace your originality. And I think that is what is going to become the new gold, is when you can discover who you are and what makes you unique in a world full of a messy middle. A messy middle meaning that anyone can create uh art on Midjourney, anyone can create a poem on um Claude Anthropic, anybody can um go to Gemini and get the latest code, but it's gonna be the messy middle. It's gonna be a lot of these LLMs that are trained to pull the world's data and give you the average. That is what the world is gonna have a lot of. So, you know what the world is not going to have? People that are unique, your fingerprint. No two snowflakes are alike for a reason. That is what the world is gonna want more of. So while people flock, we're talking about competitive advantages and counterpositioning, which are very high-level business terms. But all it really means is when the world is going this way, try to go that way. And what that way is, when the world is zigging and you're zagging, the zag is be more of yourself because there's only one you on the planet. Even twin people, like actual twins that came out of the same womb, same mother, same father, identical twins, even they are not alike. So the last competitive advantage in the world is being yourself. And you're probably still in the process of discovering that. But while you're discovering that, lean into it. Lean into the shit that makes you weird, lean into your goofy laugh, lean into the interests that intrigue you but don't intrigue nobody else. That is really the best edge you can have in an automated world. Human aura cannot be replicated. It just can't. Your vibe, your energy, what you give off, that cannot be replicated. So go out and touch the grass, go out, experience life around real people, and get the fuck off your phone listening and watching to Doom content. It doesn't help nobody.

SPEAKER_00: 47:16

Yeah, I love that, bro. Build a version of yourself that can't be duplicated, right? God damn it, I'm writing that down. Can you say that again? Yeah, build a version of yourself that can't be duplicated.

SPEAKER_01: 47:27

Rich, off top, if you were to give that advice to like, I know you got younger nephews and stuff, just what you said right there. Why is that valuable information to a young person that is looking at a world that's filled with clones?

SPEAKER_00: 47:39

Like I said, bro, that that's your IP. Your story is your IP, and that's what gives you your competitive advantage. And I feel like I only learned that in my late 20s, early 30s, of like that self-identity of like who I was. And once I figured out who I really was and I doubled down on that, that's when everything started to click for me. That's when all the success started to come. That's when I started passing certifications. And the path to a successful life, career, family became very clear for me. Before I had all these different roads that I could take, and I wasn't sure about a lot of different decisions. And once I figured out the nucleus of who my identity is, who I was, and the potential of what I could become, bro, that's when everything became clearer for me. And that's why we emphasize that I know as a young person, you're still experimenting, you're still figuring things out, you're still seeing there's a lot of different paths and roads you could take. You're seeing what your parents did, you're seeing what your friends are doing, you're seeing what older relatives have done in the past, and you're sort of deciphering like who you want to be going forward. But I promise you, take chances, you know, make a lot of mistakes, fail fast, because the faster you get to who you are and who your identity is, the faster that road becomes clearer of where you want to head and what your purpose is.

SPEAKER_01: 49:07

Yeah, Rich, that leads me to actionable advice number eight, which I think is a great segue. And it's kind of a counterpoint to that one. Chat GPT is perfect because it's a trained computer brain that is trained to give you the perfect quote unquote output. But kids that live in paralysis because they want to be perfect, I think they're doing themselves a disservice. That lack of perfection is what makes you unique. Perfection is a lie. So stop waiting to be the perfect version of yourself. As you begin to walk, the path will appear. This idea that you're just gonna get in your vehicle and know exactly where you're going when you're 30 is a fucking joke. It's actually laughable when you think about it. A young person trying to map their life all the way to retirement and they're gonna have this much money when they retire is a joke. If you tell God your plans, be prepared for him to laugh at you. You don't always need the full plan from A to Z when you hop off the porch. Just start walking. I know from life experience as you move forward, the way starts to appear. You don't need the first, second, third, fifth, even this podcast, you don't need to listen all the way to the end. As long as you have as much as you need to start today, you're gonna learn so much more by moving, being in action. And the path will reveal itself. I do believe that, Rich. And I think what these LLMs and ChatGBT is showing young men is this dependency on perfection. Because they're giving you the five things you have to do to be successful. I would use as an example, Rich, is us on our YouTube in 2025 journey when 15 years ago we were on OG YouTube and we were very successful. How much of a fucking headache have you been going through in the last three months, Rich, figuring out the path of perfection for what we've been creating here? And to prove the point, how beautiful is this imperfect process as you learn and move forward?

SPEAKER_00: 51:15

Yeah, I I love it. You know, I'll make a quick call out that it's funny when people overuse the LLMs too. You could kind of see it. It's like when you get a chat back um to your or a DM and they have like the M-dash. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, this motherfucker used ChatGPT to respond to me. Like, yeah, yeah. That becomes like annoying for a lot of people. So there is this like overuse that that can happen that could be a little bit off-putting. But um, yeah, bro, I've had to relearn YouTube completely different now because the algorithm is extremely, extremely intelligent. It's a lot more advanced, it's very nuanced, it's looking for 50 plus different data points. It's analyzing your thumbnails, your titles, your tags, your description, it's uh reading your transcriptions, it's analyzing our facial expressions, like all these different data points that this algorithm is ingesting, and then outputting it and serving it, putting us in a bucket and serving it to the right audience. It's I've been absolutely fascinated by the process, but it's significantly different now than how it was when we were uh first on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01: 52:28

And that was 15 years ago. I have two things that I want to point out based on what you just said. One, if you're watching this on video or if you're listening on audio, Rich's pupils dilated and he leaned in when he was talking about cracking the code that is YouTube, right? Two, what he's saying without saying is we done try to research, watch all the videos. I've paid for two courses trying to figure this out. The perfect formula for the perfect YouTube video. Have we figured that out yet, Rich? No, you don't watch all the videos, you done did all the chat GBTing. That's the point, is that people are gonna sell you perfect, but there is no perfect.

SPEAKER_00: 53:09

There is no perfect, and there's videos that could resurface six months from now, and you're like, wait, I thought that video was dead, and it's just because the algorithm finally decided, oh, I know who to serve this video to, and then it does its thing. So yeah, bro, you can make a lot of mistakes on the pursuit of perfection, and we're hoping you shy away from that and just want to improve rather than seek perfection. For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 53:36

Rich, we're getting to actionable advice number nine, but I do want to do a quick recap, but I want you to give us the next piece of actionable advice. Number one, accept the new tools are here to stay. That is your mental reframe. That has to be number one because if that's not your number one, you're living in fear. Accept that the new tools are here to stay. This is the modern industrial revolution. You were riding horse and carriage six months ago. Today, you just put your ass in a Ford, first Ford Model T. You don't gotta walk 20 miles anymore. You could just let them four-wheel spin and you'll get there quicker. That's what LLMs are. That's what Chat GPT is. It's a tool. Number two, educate yourself. Learn how to use these new tools. Whatever industry you're in, AI is just gonna make it more improved. It's gonna raise the floor. Understand how to utilize these tools to be better at your profession and learn whatever new skills you have to learn. Number three, leadership roles are reserved for men willing to lead. What did I not say there, Rich? Leadership roles are reserved for Chat GBT to lead. No, no, no. We need humans more than ever. There's a lot of confusion out there. Number four, it's an information golden era, man. Have more confidence in yourself. Have the confidence to know that you'll figure it out. I thought that was a good one that you mentioned, Rich. Number five, embrace your agency and ability to push back and fight for what you want in your life. Do not believe that this automated tool is the end of human civilization. It's not. You have to have agency. You have to push back. Number six, human aura can't be automated. Go outside, touch grass. If you're really young, discover who you are, lean into it. It's gonna serve you a hundred times over. Number seven, build a version of yourself that can't be duplicated. That was a very powerful quote, Rich. I love that quote. Number eight, Chat GPT is perfect because it's a computer. But perfection is a lie. Humans are not perfect. You will find more of the road as you continue to take steps. But take your first step, move forward, stop trying to do everything with perfection in mind. That's number eight, Rich. I don't know if you have a number nine, but I have another one to close this out.

SPEAKER_00: 55:56

I want to reiterate communication, bro, because we've spoken about this skill in a couple different episodes, and it's no different here, and I feel like it's very applicable because when you prompt AI, like I mentioned earlier, it's gonna output a lot of information. But how you translate that information and how you communicate that information to and use it to your advantage is such a huge leverage when it comes to improving your IP as a person, and and that goes into like being a good leader and being a good uh communicator. So learning the ability to know how to prompt, collect information, but communicate that information effectively, that combo, bro, is lethal.

SPEAKER_01: 56:44

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you and I never really discussed AI on a deep level, even though we were very much addressing it in our personal lives. And it is refreshing to hear your perspective on it, Rich, because I know you are someone that has always lived in the future. You have a very positive and more accepting outlook on it. Where does that come from?

SPEAKER_00: 57:04

I mean, I'm a technologist by heart, bro. I feel like everything could be solved with technology. And um, whenever I see something that can improve society, can improve humanity, can improve yourself, and like I said, give you a 10x on any sort of purpose, goal, or productivity that you want to accomplish, I think you should absolutely leverage that. And I use Chat GPT, Gemini, Grok nonstop, bro, all day, every day for many different tasks. It's it's become my virtual assistant. Like there's no question that goes unanswered in my life. You know what I mean? Yep. And I'm never guessing about what the answer of something could be. I have the answers on my phone in my fingertips. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01: 57:52

Rich, I just want to close out with number 10. I believe IRL pressure is what makes you stronger. Real life judgment and decision making is the new gold. As we enter a world where everybody has all this information at their fingertips, a real man is gonna be measured by his judgment and level of knowledge on any subject that he claims to be a master of. And the person that's gonna be able to make a snap decision in real life is going to separate the men from the boys. And that's why I waited to number 10 to say that because I'll give you a few scenarios. You pick which one you want to discuss. I was dating my girl for a few years before I met her parents because I didn't know if we were gonna stay in LA and I was gonna be seriously committed in a relationship. Rich, her father pulled up on us one time, and I had to get it together in milliseconds. Because he was an old school Mexican dude who was coming at me and put the fear of God in me because I could tell that his beautiful daughter was being taken away from his home and he wanted to know a little bit more about me. Why is IRL real life judgment and decision making the new gold? Because if I wasn't that guy in that moment, I would have folded. I could have known all the top 10 tips on how to talk to your girl. You get what I'm saying? Real life is a motherfucker. If you're drowning and there are sharks in the water, you could read every book on animalistic behavior. But how you react in that moment is going to be predicated on who you are in real life. A job interview. You can research all the questions that your employer is going to ask you, your future employer is gonna ask you. But when they hit you with that little curveball in the interview, or on week number three, your boss is a dickhead and he says something out of control to you. How you react in that moment, you can't go and research. And the last one, because I know our community loves women and they don't have any, when you're sitting on date number three and She says, Hey, let's go back to my place. And you're getting it grizz, you're kissing, you're actually thinking to yourself, Oh man, I can't wait until the boys hear about this in the group chat. I did it. I'm finally here. And you go around and try to reach for that bra strap. I don't know if you've ever tried to unlock a three-clipper. A three-clipper means you're working with something quality. It could get difficult if you've never really done it in real life. AI can't teach you that. And AI can't teach you that. So you might be fumbling around for a little bit. In that exact moment, Rich, a woman is gonna test you. She's gonna tease you. She's gonna take it off and be like, well, you need a little help. AI can't teach you that, my boy. You gotta be graceful when she's naked and you're right on third base. If you're a fucking nerd and you cheat coded your way up to that moment, you're gonna get exposed. Pick any of those topics, Rich. And I want to unpack it because that's the world we're going to be living in from this point forward. IRL judgment and decision making is the new gold.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:08

Yeah, I love the father-in-law story, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:12

I knew he was gonna put that one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:14

It's a firm ass handshake.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:15

I'm not gonna lie, he had the hat on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:17

Oh, the sombrero, yeah, yeah. That's how you know it's real. He's a real deal. Old school Mexican with the sombrero. Yeah, yeah. Yo, Chad GPT can't teach you that, bro. Like, what ethnic skills does Chad GPT have to be like, this is how you deal with an old school Mexican dude who doesn't want his daughter to be taken away by this handsome Puerto Rican guy from New York, New Jersey, who has no business being out here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:42

Yeah, for what it's worth, I'm a colonizer. I've I've taken one of theirs.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:47

Yeah, exactly. AI can't teach you how to handle that situation. So I'm glad you got it together and you figured it out and you were graceful about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:56

Rich, do you have a met your girl's father-in-law, father, or men in her family story? Is there anything or a mother that put pre- I mean moms be putting pressure too?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:05

Oh, my girl's mom didn't even acknowledge me at the table when I first showed up for dinner that one time. She was like side-eyeing me, didn't talk to me, didn't ask me any questions, nothing. For real? Yeah, she told my girl, oh, another Dominican, because my girl's ex is Dominican. This is a perfect example. Yeah, she classified me. Can an LLM prepare you for that moment? Nah, bro. Now, listen, I love my mother-in-law.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:31

Now we have a great relationship, but but that's the truth of the moment. It's the truth of the moment. The shit that your son asks you, you can research it after, but in that moment, he's gonna know. To your point earlier, what is it? Number seven, leadership. Your son is trying to figure out if you're the guy that's gonna lead him into the next phase of his life. So you I feel like every week, personally, as friends, you always tell me, like, bro, my son always asks me some random shit, and you're always shocked, but you never show it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:59

Yeah, because I could tell he's trying to figure it out. He even wanted to race you one time. Like, he's trying, he's trying. Yeah, talking to Pops is like a heat check for him. I'm I'm just thinking about it. I'm like, man, he's he's just going through so much, so many thoughts, so many decisions. He's always trying to just validate whatever he feels, and he's at the early stages of identifying what makes him him and who he is as a person. And I could see when he asks questions that he's inquiring about what's right and what's wrong or indifferent. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:35

For sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:37

Rich, we got to our 10th piece of actionable device, and I wanted to read a quote from one of the world's greatest designers ever. His name is Johnny Ives. If you don't know who Johnny Ives is, he's uh Steve Jobs' right hand. He produced every Mac or Apple product that we love. He produced this iPhone, he produced a MacBook Pro, everything, everything. He is the king of design, and his product is the most used product in the world. And I was obsessing over reading more autobiographies and and and like books on people that are really good at design because I have a tendency to read more business books and marketing books because that's my profession. But learning more about AI, I was able to realize one thing that is going to be valuable in the future is having the ability to have good judgment and selection and design taste. Taste is like the accumulation, it's like wisdom, it's all this knowledge that you've gathered. And in a millisecond, you can decide whether you want to put this filter over an 808 drum or this filter over 808 drum. You want to use this font type for uh intro video, or you want to use this font type. A lot of people assume that that is not valuable, but it is very valuable because of this one quote that Johnny Ives said in a conference where he was talking about Steve Jobs and his level of taste was something that you could literally never find anywhere else in the world. And every product that exists that we use today, it's the things that we can't calculate, it's the things that we can't see that are beautiful in a lot of these products. And I love that quote because so many people care about Steve Jobs and they try to mimic him and they try to be weird and eccentric like him. But one guy that was so close to him and was his companion in designs had this quote. And this is not an AI quote, but when I read it when I was reading his autobiography, I thought to myself, wow, this is relevant to the world that we live in today. Johnny Ives said, one of the most dangerous lies, since we spend majority of our time debating over things we can easily measure, we just assume that things that we could measure are the only things that matter. But that's a lie. It's a dangerous lie. It's the things that we can't measure that matter the most and give us false confidence. And I love that because even though he was talking about product design and what you take away and what you don't add and your taste is what makes beautiful design, beautiful design. But I find it to be relevant in this conversation. The human being has so many things about it that a computer could never ever compute that make us relevant, important, significant. And I want to stay on the word significant because the title of this episode is Men Feeling Replaceable. The most replaceable generation of all time. And my pushback to that is you don't even know what makes humans special. You definitely don't know what's going to make you special. You're a young man, you don't know yet. So it's the things that we're not paying attention to that we refuse to calculate. And I think we need to do a better job at that. I think young men need to take a step back and do a better job at that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:02

Damn, I love that. I'm gonna reiterate the the quote build a version of yourself that can't be duplicated.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:10

Powerful. It's powerful, and I want all the young men listening to this episode. If you made it this far, which they probably didn't, because our research shows unless you show some titties or some crazy shit, motherfucker won't make it past 50 seconds. So you're not a replaceable man. Stop believing that narrative. The world has always dealt with God-level technology that feels like everything is changing. And you know what? Things are changing, but it's more of an opportunity than anything else. You're only replaceable unless you accept to be replaced. So that summarizes this episode. Rich, I know we have a nice little closeout we like to do episodes, so you definitely get to that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:50

There you have it. Follow us on at failuresmedia, subscribe to the YouTube, and like we always say, just we're not gurus, we're not gods, we're just guides. We're not AIs, we're out of here. We're not AIs.