CEOs are cutting aggressively right now, hunting for inefficiencies and dead weight. Three years of weak growth and high inflation have made executives quicker to fire staff, demand AI efficiencies, and slash costs. One global food-company CEO is literally looking for "dead bodies" in the organization.
Would you say more CEOs are on a rampage right now or less?
What do you mean by rampage?
Meaning that these people are on a tear to uncover any areas of inefficiency and ruthlessly cut if needed.
I'm gonna rephrase it a little bit when I describe what they are. They're on a rampage, but a little bit of a different type of rampage. Some of it could be cost cutting. Some of it could be trying to drum up new business and revenue. Some of it could be trying to get strategic and figure out how to partner with other people and generate more revenue through cross-selling products, you know, from competitors or people who are in complementary businesses. They're trying to do whatever. Because the sentiment of the economy is so bad, they're afraid that they're just going all in. And going back to AI and cost cutting, the reason some of them are trying to figure out ways to reduce expenses is they're planning out contingencies for when things get worse because they don't know how bad it's going to get. It's been almost 3 years and they think it's going to continue for a little bit. Fed's not reducing really rates at any moment right now. Um, and tariff problems haven't been solved. So they're just trying to figure out, well, if we can create efficiencies, maybe I don't have to do layoffs in a few months.
Yeah.
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My take on the rampage piece right now, and actually it's one of my friends that said this, um, he's like, I'm on a rampage right now because, um, he had talked about one of his employees, you know, um, going to the gym during the call and like being late to one of the calls. And, um, he's just been firing a lot quicker. And this is one of the nicest guys that I know. And he's just like, he's like, oh, I just let go of my head of design. I just let go of my head of product. Oh, we just fired an agency over here. I was like, dude. But he's like, yeah, I'm on a rampage right now. And interestingly enough, I have someone I know, she runs like a large like food company that's global. And she is a very nice person, global CEO. And she's like, yeah, I'm finding a bunch of dead bodies everywhere right now. And I am just, I want to cut everywhere. And yesterday I met someone for the first time. She's like, oh, I'm going to fire my entire marketing team. And so, you have a lot of these Really kind-looking people that it just seems like they are— maybe because to your point, we've been sitting in this, this crap for the last 3 years or so. I think people are becoming more battle-hardened, more battle-hardened, and I think people are willing to take less crap. And you can probably argue I've become more battle-hardened too, and I think you have too.
Yes.
In the last 3 years or so, more hardcore, more rampagey. Um, and that's not to say, hey, we're here to just want to cut people. I think our tolerance for BS is lower now. Our tolerance for pain is probably higher, But our tolerance for BS is lower.
And I think it's because a lot of us don't have choices. Growth has slowed down. And when growth slows down, valuations naturally decline as well. In a bad economy, valuations decline naturally as well. So when you, when you have a declining in valuation because of lower growth or negative growth, and because of a bad economy, you're getting hit twice on the valuation end. So they have no choice but for ways to figure it out. And what I've noticed with a lot of these people, including myself, when times are good, we're much more chill. I actually travel less in a good economy than a bad economy because things are growing without me having to push hard. And I don't focus as much on meddling in the business when things are good versus when the economy is bad because it's like, yeah, it's working even if it's done in a different way than I think is best. Whatever, it's working. Let them go and do it.
Dude, like I said, tough times create strong people and then it just goes on and on until we go back to— we have— we create weak people. Good times create weak people and that's what happens. All right, guys. So, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, view, subscribe. Let us know what you think about this episode where we recorded with the DJI Osmo. I set this up myself. We got another camera over there. So, that being said, we'll see you tomorrow.
Peace.
