IPO and Augusta Performance - Episode 096

Welcome back. Another episode C Suite Unfiltered with Mike Andes. He is head down making slides. What slides are you working on?

It's nice to roundtable for Augusta Nation.

So yeah. So if you ever want the juicy intel, the behind the scenes, join Augusta as always, we got a roundtable tonight. Very excited about that. But I, I didn't want to talk about that today. I wanted to talk about a few different things. So inside of Augusta and I'm sure you're going to be talking about this tonight a little bit on the round table and we've, we've talked about on the pod before, a little bit publicly. We've teased it that you know the long term plan for Augusta and now what you have made a little bit more obvious. The Mike Holdco. So Augusta co pilot and the media arm are kind of coming together as one to eventually IPO down the road. And you've been very upfront about that. You've shared that for, for I don't know how long now, maybe a year or so. That's been like a general vision that you've shared and now it's becoming more realized and putting some more formal steps in place to get there. Now the question that kind of comes to my mind and others have asked and maybe brought about in conversation is why go the IPO route versus bringing in venture capital or bringing in private equity? Because I was thinking of, you know, say Tommy Mello, right. A1 Garage does 200 million in revenue. That'd be a smaller IPO, but he's completely private. So why doesn't he look to do the IPO route versus bring on private equity or venture capital to help him out. Same thing. David Ramsey totally privately held. So these kind of influencers that also have successful businesses have kept them private. Then we look at Service Titan, right. We talked about their IPO previously on this podcast that they IPO'd. I just looked it up this morning to make sure since they ipo they're about 14%. So shout out Service Titan. So kind of just some industry comps if you will. What do you see as you know, kind of your differentiating factors to go the IPO route versus stay the private route?

Yeah, like someone like, like Tommy for example, does have a lot of private equity behind him. That's when in the past few years they've bought up a whole bunch of different companies and done a bunch of roll ups. And so you know, they have a lot of private equity. I don't want to lose that kind of control. Private equity has a relatively short window of time in terms of five to seven years that they're going to be looking to exit. And I usually see the businesses that get purchased by private equities getting completely obliterated. Like if they're good, they just get, you raise prices, you cut support, you cut development and you just SAP that thing for profit and then you flip it. And that's their playbook. They're going to put you into network effects of other, the businesses they have inside their portfolio. They're going to try to increase top line revenue, increase your profit at all costs and then they're going to try to flip the business. So I just see this over and over and over again. There's like very, very few times where you see private equity come into a smaller company. So there's their private equity by like a mature brand, for example, like a subway or something like that. And then so I've seen some good things happen there because it's like very established. They're not trying to just massively inflate it and flip it. But when you look talk about startups talking about companies that are, you know, valued between, you know, 30 and $100 million, I just don't see those being purchased by private equity and then going on to serve the customer better, serve the industry better. And since that's the goal of.

The, you know, augustination and what I'm trying to do is like, I just know that would come into direct opposition, there'd be a whole bunch of conflict of interest around me sharing stuff publicly on the content and the channel side, they have issues with that. So like there would just be a lot of issues. So that's why private equity and venture capital and never been an issue. Venture capital being much more of like the software side, that's what they, they would be interested, they're taking much bigger swings. Typically they're not, they're less interested in like returns on capital. They're like, hey, we want. Well I shouldn't say that they're more interested in like massive swings, one out of a hundred. They're trying to go for a unicorn. Whereas private equity is okay, usually it's more like cash flowing businesses, a little more longevity, et cetera. So then the real question is like why wouldn't the real good, the good, the good question is, you know, why don't we do what Dave Ramsey does, which is like no one has equity in the business. He owns 100%. And then you just cash flow, everything. And so the question is, why don't we do that. And the real answer is because I don't want to be doing it for 40 years to get where he's at. That's like the real real. And so they made a conscious decision to not give any equity to their team. They do profit sharing only. And because as soon as you have equity to your team or have investors, you need a liquidity event, whether that be going to private equity and getting a piece of business sold which gives liquidity to the business or you need to go ipo. Now this is the thing for Dave Ramsey. They sell information, they sell books, they sell courses, they sell access, they call conferences. I know the multiple is so lousy. That's why you can't really like could they do it? Yes, they could. Let me be very clear. But the multiple on that revenue is so low, especially with his name attached to it. And they've obviously done a great job like diversifying like the Every dollar app etc for budgeting and they do a phenomenal job. Let me just be very clear, from a private equity and a valuation perspective, it'd be a rough sell going to the market because there's just not a huge lot of scalability in like having conferences and selling courses, et cetera. And so I shouldn't say scalability, that's like the wrong answer. Wrong, wrong word. It's more a matter of there's not a lot of value attached to it because it's so fickle. And even though your margins are high, it's a very high cash flowing business. The valuation is low because the moat is so small. Like, like anyone can make the course, anyone can make the conference. And so that's why the valuation that when you go to Wall street or you go to private equity for something like that education business, which is essentially what Dave Ramsey has built with other things attached to it, is lower. That being said, that's why they're going into like things like the EveryDollar app where it is a piece of technology and it could have a higher valuation. All of that being said, I don't want to be waiting 30 more years to get to the point where I'm starting to build an every dollar app, for example. Like I just don't want to do that. I want to see the impact sooner. And to do that I need to get people on board and be engineers, et cetera, that are beyond my pay grade. And to do that I need to give them equity. And then the equity is only valuable if we have a liquidity event. And so the question became okay, do we want to do this and have the impact when I'm in my 60s and be much more around the Dave Ramsey side, or can we pull this forward, do it in 10 years? I give a piece of pieces of the business away to August Nation to team members and then be able to attract talent that allows us to do this much faster. And I would just rather spend 20, 30 years of my career feeling like we actually kind of crossed the finish line. And then I'm able to just take it to the next level versus me taking 30 years to get there because I'm trying to cash flow everything, get one new engineer every single year. It would just take us so much longer. The long and short of it, I am in a rush, and that usually is not a good thing. But, like, I'd say micro in a rush, but like the macro, like, I'm going to be in this for a long time. I would just rather spend the majority of my career in kind of his current phase, which is like, thinking more about legacy, thinking much more like impact. Like, I would rather spend, like, the majority of my career, like, for, say, 35 and onwards, instead of waiting till I'm 55 or 60 to actually start thinking that way.

Yeah, no, that's great. And I think that I kind of blurred the line there a little bit, I guess. There's kind of three general. And once again, speaking very general terms, there's kind of three definitions. There's the ipo, okay, so we go to an initial public offering and are now a stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Then there's bringing in venture capital or private equity, primarily private equity in this. In this, for the sake of conversation, to inject capital and have a say inside of the business. But then there's 100 privately held, which is the Dave Ramsey route. So I kind of blurred the line there. Whereas Tommy Mello does have private equity investors, Jay Ramsey does not. So why. So. So you kind of answered the specific question of why you're not 100% going to stay privately held by my candies. And you partly answered the question of private equity. Because they're going to come in and change things. They're going to dictate how we do things and change pricing and maybe not run the business the way you want to. So now the question becomes, why does IPO seem like the best option for you?

Yeah, because it allows me to have a liquidity event without losing control. So I'm able to. Like, for example, like, there are several publicly traded companies that essentially the founders still can run it with 100 authority. Like the best example of this is Mark Zuckerberg. He basically can do it every once. It's Facebook because he owns all the voting shares. And so this is very common. Like for example, as a shareholder you can vote on things in certain companies depending on like what kind of class of shares you have. So for example, like Berkshire Hathaway, you have like different share types. Like if you want to go, you're paying like 300 grand a certain class of share. And usually it has to do with voting rights. It has to do with, you know, do you actually have preferred shares, you have common shares. Like there's a lot of different, you know, types of shares. Not like I just have stock in a company, it's all equal. You can have equity distributions, but the type of stock that is held has a different power inside the organization from a voting perspective, from a control perspective. And so when we go public, the objective is to create liquidity for the team and it's create liquidity to be able to go into robotics. Those are the two reasons we need the money. And then the nice thing about going public is I can have certain shares that have all the voting power. So I can still run it like a founder led company, similar to what Elon does, similar to what Zuck does. They take their company public, gives a mass amount of liquidity to take over the market share, but then they're able to control the business still like a founder versus when you give it to private equity, very few of them are going to allow you to have all the shares. Like they want control because they need to have, they have, you know, investors that are in their funds that they have to report back to and they are not going to let you go take a business and do whatever you want with it. They want to have like a state usually like your valuation be massively impacted if you didn't allow them to have some sort of say in the business. And so, you know, I think, I think that like it gives me a little bit of the both, both the best worlds. It gives me the, it gives me the opportunity to get the talent, it gives me the opportunity to get the liquidity that I need to go into robotics that I believe in 5, 10 years we'll need to kind of do a foray can spend $50 million on. And then secondly it allows me to still retain control of voting of the business. Like I will do what I want. So it's very clear like when we do the standard agreement for future equity for the owners which is happening now that like you don't have a say in the business. Like there's no, there's no say. This is the equivalent of buying something on Robinhood. You don't get any say. And it's not because I don't want to include them and I certainly will invest in meetings and I listen to take surveys, et cetera. But ultimately like it allows us the flexibility store we ran founder led company even as we grow. And so that will, that will. And even internally the team, the same type of shares that people are getting in the safe internally in gust Nation is the same shares I'm giving away to the, the, the executives. And so like there's no one, there's no one besides me that has voting power. And so you know there are, there's downsides to that. For example like people hated this three years ago with Facebook when their stock price went down 75% and everyone was calling Mark Zuckerberg an idiot and they're trying to change the voting structure, et cetera, complaining now that it's 5x because you know their foray into they started to really adjust some things and it was because they were able to move quickly and Mark was able to get in there and just start slashing jobs, slashing, cutting the budget like he can move much faster. And so there's pros and cons. I think if you, if you have a very volatile and incompetent CEO you could really ruin the business quickly. And so that's why typically a board having more structure, having different voting shares or not having voting from the CEO and they're more of a president or chairman can be beneficial once a company matures. I think from our founder led company, from an innovation perspective like retaining that control is a nice part of ipoing. And yes, the valuation gets kind of hurt when you say hey look I'm, I'm basically in control of this boat. Like I'm going to control 90, 90% plus of the voting shares. It definitely hurts the valuation to some perspective. I think it's usually made up for the, by the fact that the, the if it's done right and if it's the right founder, there's more upside to them having the voting shares because you can move quickly. And so this is why like for example if, if, if Elon got hit by a bus tomorrow the stock price of, of like Tesla would get, Crate would crater and, and I think similarly with Facebook, so it's not to say like everything's about the Founder. I don't believe that, but I think that founder, like companies can adapt. They can, they are much more vision minded. Instead of a CEO, it's getting a compensation package and they're just trying to boost the, the stock price. So yeah, it'll be interesting. I'm really looking forward to or like interested in like once we're 20 years deep into going public, like what does that look like?

Yeah.

And so yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a fun ride. And honestly, dude, if you ask the question, do you want to live a life where you have a public company versus a private company? I just like public kind of seems cool. I kind of enjoy sharing the numbers. We're in this phase. Like so at the very beginning before we franchise, I was sharing all the numbers online, right Then we hit franchising and it's like, okay, legally, like you have a lot of red tape if you share numbers around your like my personal numbers. So like I haven't been able to do that. And so I look forward to day. I'm like, okay, great, we're ipoing and every quarter I get to make a YouTube video with our quarterly numbers. It's gonna be so much fun, dude. And we have an executive team in there answer questions. It'll be great. So that's what I'm looking forward to. It, it will be fun. I, I, I just think it would be more community thing too. Like I would love to make, be like one of the first like, you know, publicly traded companies that do our stuff on YouTube and have like a huge audience. Be so fun.

Yeah. I was gonna say the, the, the, the report meetings, the quarterly reports will be insane dud.

Else too.

I have like 2 or 3 million subscribers. If you like Alex, if Alex had had like a publicly trade company and every quarter did like a live stream of their investor report, dude, that'd be fire. So I'm looking forward to doing that 100.

You know how you'd get so many views from that and then plus the production value. Fast forward 10 years with your media team, like the production value will be insane. You would get so many public viewers, you get so many people betting on you. And I think that's, I think that's the cool thing to, to speak as, as, as a non founder, as a non business owner. Is that basically it you say people vote with their dollars and well, if people are voting with their dollars, you know, if the stock market is one giant casino, they're betting on you. Right? And, and I think that's cool. They're betting on the founder. And that's why, you know, sometimes Tesla or Facebook are very volatile stocks at times, at times, because the founder says something, does something, makes a dumb decision, but then they can correct, they can reset their course very quickly. And it's like, okay, great, I want to bet on that horse, I want to bet on that founder because I believe in what they're doing and I willing to take the, the, the, the risks. I'm willing to take the ups and the downs because I believe long term in that founder. And I think that's where people resonate with you and myself included, as, even as one of your employees is like, I resonate with you because, like, I'm gonna bet on you. Like, if, if this all disappeared tomorrow and you were starting back at zero, I'd still bet on you. Does that make sense? So I think, like, people just want to taste that, they want to be a part of that. And I think it's cool that that's what you want to do. And I also agree with you. I think there's something cool to say, like, hey, we're, we're a publicly traded company. Here's all of our numbers, here's everything we do, here's the playbook, and you still can't beat us. Kind of like what Tesla does with open patents. It's like, hey, this is everything we do and you still can't beat us.

I like mentality.

Yeah.

It's the greatest form of open book management. So it's like, look, I can talk this game, but until I actually can share these, all these numbers, like, I'm not doing open book management. So like, I look forward to that. You know, as long as you release this tomorrow, you can, you can, I can keep this in. And it's like, so like the valuation just came back in the other day, like for us to, for us to beat the round that we're raising at. I was like, I was a little nervous about it, but we were able to beat it from a 409A valuation from Carta. And so should anyone invest based upon a 409 evaluation? No. But it's definitely a huge vote of confidence. Be like, okay, whoever's investing in Augusta is already net positive on their investment, so that was a big win. I want to make sure I have a track record of beating expectations from day one. And so that was a nice shot of confidence. And I think going forward, if we're going to be a publicly traded company being responsible with the money of the investors is like a big deal to me. So like I already feel the pressure the past like month knowing people have put money in now and like it's, it's game time. But you know, I'm like, okay, it's like we're gonna cut money, cut, cut budget anywhere we possibly can now because we need to make sure this is tight. So it's been fun enough. It's been good.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, I, I did look up an article. I know that we've already kind of went way deep into this, so it doesn't really necessarily matter, but I guess just to put a nice cap on this, this is an article.

Agarwal, he is the CEO of AMB Capital Options, has done a ton of venture backed.

What do you call that, investments. He's also very big in the stock market. Anyways, he gets very granular. So I. But he is also very good at explaining things on a very basic level. So one thing I wanted to recap just kind of what you were saying is his explanation of IPOs versus private equity. And a couple of the things that I wanted to highlight was decision making power. What you said an ipo. He says folks who started the company still steer the ship. New investors don't get to call the shots unless there is a, a selling of voting shares. Private equity. These investors roll up their sleeves and get involved as well as participation of board of directors, which you kind of teased with an ipo. Usually not much changes with the board. Original owners stay in charge, maybe adding a few independent directors as needed. Private equity. These investors want to see that the board and they want to push their own representatives and their own agenda on in the company's direction. And then exit strategy. IPO investors can cash out by selling their shares at the stock market whenever they want. There' strict plan on when or how to leave private equity. These investors usually have a game plan aiming to sell their piece of the company after a few years either to another investor or by selling shares in an ipo. So really, to sum it up, private equity, you are giving up a lot of control from a board position, from a pricing position, from even a control position. And that's where you're just basically like, hey, let's control it ourselves. And then ipo.

Yeah, it's like, you know, there will come a time where it's like, I might say, like, hey, let's all cut prices by 30% so we can take market share, right? And private equity would freak out because like, no, no, within 12 months we gotta exit. So whereas if you're publicly traded, you can tell the story, you can get people to realize, okay, this is like a long term play and this is why it's good. And then you can execute on it. So yeah, I look forward to it. It's very weird though, by the way, with now the holding company, I can't. Like I can't. So we're not S Corps, we're C Corp now. And so I can't. It's very difficult for Michael to take owner's distribution, so I had to increase my salary. The other day I'm like, wait a second, I need to actually make some money here to pay my bills. So it's a very weird feeling. I was telling Brianna the other day, it's like, well, okay, this valuation came in good, great. And like I still feel very poor.

It's just different now as a C Corp, I can't move money around as easily or take distributions.

Yeah, fair enough. All righty. Well, drastically switching topics here to some other founder and industry leader conversations. I don't know if you saw this. This sparks some news. We are going to talk about our guy Elon again, but this is from an article that is from. Let me just make sure I get my sources right. Techcrunch.com now this was big news on Twitter and a bunch of different social media platforms, but I wanted to find an article that was a great summation of everything that happened. So here, let me read this summary. Jack Dorsey, co founder of Twitter Now X&Block, sparked debate by posting delete all IP law law intellectual Property Law with Elon Musk quickly agreeing. The comments come amid growing legal scrutiny of AI companies, including lawsuits alleging copyright violations and AI training supporters like tech investor Chris Messina. It suggested current IP enforcement may unfairly punish AI use, likening it to a passed over policing of minor crimes. Critics, however, saw the remarks as an attack on creators. Ed Newton Rex called it war on creators. And writer Lincoln Michelle accused Dorsey and Mus of hip hypocrisy, saying their companies literally rely on IP laws. So did you see anything about this?

I did not.

Yeah, gotcha. So let me just finish this, this, this summarization of this article here. Dorsey later clarified that current IP systems benefit gatekeepers more than creators and argued for better compensation models. Must stance aligns with past comments dismissing patents as weak despite some legal inconsistency. Dorsey's interest in open source initiatives like Blue sky also refle his anti IP sentiment, although he has since distanced himself from the project. The Exchange reflects broader tensions and tech over intellectual property, especially as AI development and influence grow and as tech voices increasingly shape public policy. So what are your thoughts on just Jack Dorsey's comment of delete all IP law? What are your initial reactions to that?

I don't know, like I, I'm a fan of like it doesn't matter. The Chinese are going to rip you off anyways, so might as well make it easy for everyone else to rip each other off. I think it probably helps the small person because you can rip stuff off and then get started on a more solid foundation. I also think IP is a great moat. So the only thing that keeps you from becoming Augusta Lawn Care is our name. We have bigger problems and so the community, the software, there's so many other things that are much better moat, you know, building command center etc than you know the name. And so IP is like, it's like obviously like, hey, we have tons of IP and like I've hold it in a separate entity, separate from all the other companies to make sure it's protected and I can defend it. So don't get me wrong. But like if tomorrow everyone's like, hey, they can use any, I guess longer I'm like, okay, great, I could care less. We'll just still smoke them on SEO. They won't be able to grow because we'll beat them in their market. So I don't think it's a big deal. I also hate defending IP stuff. It's just annoying. So like, if I could just take that off of my to do list, it'd be kind of nice. But I have no real opinion on this because I could argue it both ways.

Yeah. What are your thoughts though? Because obviously you're looking at it, I feel very analytically black and white business perspective. But look at it from like the creative perspective, right? When you have like works of fiction, if you will. I feel like there is an element where it does seem unfair to rip off, you know, great authors, right? Like J.K. rowling of Harry Potter. Like, oh, I can just rip off everything she did from Harry Potter because that's her intellectual property. And then I can make my own spin off of the Harry Potter series, right? That seems unfair to me that like she created that, that is her ip. Why should we eliminate all the laws that protect everyone from using her characters, the likeness of those characters, the world she built. Why should we allow other people to take something that that artist made. Made. That's just one example.

I don't know. I feel like you should Just be better and keep creating. You're the author of it and you're so good. Like, just keep going.

Like, okay, but what about authors that are no longer around? Right? So let's say, like, they contribute to society.

They played their part, you know, Like, I feel like if we're trying to, like, move this species forward here, we should take collective knowledge and build on top of it instead of being like, no one can use your work once you die. Like, come on, they're dead. What are they gonna do? So I'm a fan of, like, let's, like, move. Move progressively forward here and not, like, try to, like, gatekeep information.

But, you know, I. I see your point. I think it's also, like, you can also do things like, authorized, like, like, it is. What's it called? Like, when a baseball gets, like, autograph. It gets autographed, like, and then they, like, what do they do? They register it. What's it called? They, like, they validate the fact that it's real.

Yeah, yeah. They have. They have those registration or certification organizations, psa grading of it. That nature. Yes. I feel.

I feel it's like, look, if you want to support J.K. rowling and, like, the original author, this is certified by them versus this is a knockoff. Like, just be honest about it and then, like, let the consumer choose whether they want to go after, you know, which one. And I have to believe that if the original author is so good or the original maker of whatever content or creation they are, they will be on the cutting edge of that genre of content. And so, like, if people started, like, knocking off my videos, like, great, that's fantastic. I will be the one making the new ones that they will copy. And so, like, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. And if, like, yeah, I'm digesting as much as I can of my stuff into AI, so, like, it can figure stuff out and then disseminate to everyone else.

Right? But then. But then where's the line of, like, a direct copy? Like, if you get rid of all IP law, like, where is the line of someone who directly copied you? Like, theoretically, okay, with the advanced AI And I'm trying to make home services forward.

Should I get mad about people ripping off the 4L framework that I came up with with?

Well, there's ripping off and then there's using it constructively. Right? Like, we. We talk about a lot in Augusta, extreme ownership. We're not ripping off Jocko Willink. We're not trying to be like, Jocko Willink. But that is a core principle that is ineffective way to run a business. You have found. I have found. We agree upon that. Great. But we're not ripping him off. It would be ripping him off if you went to his YouTube channel and found one of his first videos and then you used AI to basically copy that. Exactly. But then make it seem like you were saying the things he said that.

That'S plenty of people doing. That's what I'm saying.

Okay, so then I don't think that's fair. Like I think there, there's, there is a line like you can say the words extreme ownership. Like that shouldn't be Jaco's ip, that shouldn't be trademarked, whatever. You can use that in a video. You don't even need to say his name. You don't need to give him credit. But like directly copying say like a four minute video he did on extreme ownership, like I'm talking direct copy all but a couple and oz, that doesn't seem fair to me. Does that make sense?

Sure. Yeah, I guess. I think it's like we're going the direction of like this is not. It's just gonna be impossible because every word on the Internet is going to be transcribed. It's being scrubbed by AI. And like the more and more you see ChatGPT taking little bits and pieces of words that were said in an interview, that's some obsolete interview. You're like, okay, so it's scrubbing every single word and realizing that it is, it is going to maybe source that. So for example, like I'm a big fan of sourcing. So for example, if AI actually scrub every word and for example, if is actually ripping off word for word Jocko. I feel like the thing that this technology can do is say, hey, FYI, we believe this is being sourced from this, this original piece of content and that original piece of content is certified from as original. So I think it just becomes like again, the technology will get so good to where I believe it will be able to find the source of the original content and it'll know who said it first.

So yeah, see and I, and I like that. And that's where like I don't. I also agree with the, you know, the kind of, the quote, the not direct quote from Musk, but the, oh it's, it leans towards over policing and I am also a pro freedom. Right. But it's also, it's, it's a fine line. Right? Because I do feel like we should police direct copies or using Someone's actual creatives to our own advantage, for our own gain. But I also don't want to over police people. So it's an. It's a very awkward line, but I will say to your point about being able to pull any words you want off the Internet now with the AI scrubbing, I was writing a follow up email to someone and I was like, hey, this, this email is really good. You know, I was typing it up, I put in chat GPT. I was like, hey, let's make this a little bit cleaner, a little tighter, a little nicer, package it a little bit better. And throwing a little Mike Andes quote. I was like just throwing a Mike Andy's quote for me and it did and it was phenomenal. So this is what it typed up. So I was like, so this is just an excerpt from the email. I said, now the mission simple, let's bridge the gap between where you're at now and where you want to go. Mike always says success is rented. And Ren rent is due every day. You're already paying the rent, working two jobs, grinding, da da da da da. And then I basically go on to pitch Augusta. But it was wild that I just pulled a quote that applied directly to this email follow up that I was doing from one of your videos. I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely have heard you say that before. So that was wild.

That's awesome.

Let's go. But that was giving you credit. I also asked it to write an email for me and Alex Hormozi style and it made it like extremely blunt but very like very thoughtful. I was like, wow, this is so cool. So I might be using that more, but that's not a violation of IP law. So anyways, Chamath Polyhapitiya had some words to say on this as well from the all in podcast. Billionaire investor in Silicon Valley and he tweeted this. So just to give some more perspective because this isn't like a very common conversation you and I are having, our audience really cares about probably much. But I just thought since a lot of people are talking about it, it will impact us I think down the road. So it's interesting to discuss. So Chamath said, how could this work when we where they are coming from, I. E. Musk and Jack Dorsey? I don't know exactly, but here's my guess. In business you can view your knowledge in one of three buckets. 1. Common knowledge 2. Trade secrets 3. IP. A company's ability to succeed is the sum of the three multiplied by your Ability to execute so still giving credit to the people actually doing the work. So 1 + 2 + 3/es e execution equals magnitude of success. View this way, a great execution can almost always overcome a lack of any one or two ingredients. Meanwhile, IP alone cannot overcome incompetence. A world without IP laws would shift the surface area to common knowledge and trade secrets. This would have the benefit of forcing companies to spend less time filing or protecting ideas and more time executing them and developing practiced excellence. Currently, 41% of the US GDP is measured as coming from IP intensive area. So we, we need to figure out if this model is possible for areas like software, hardware and pharma. But if there are no IP laws, there would be more trade secrets to protect what companies do, less legal wrangling in courts, fewer constraints on competition, and more reductive posture with countries that already have a looser enforced guidelines on ip. Anyway, anyways, I. E. China. So what are your thoughts on Chamaste? Because I feel like he balances that out really well with okay, we should protect IP for these businesses, but also there could be some unforeseen benefits because they're still the people that have to execute. Right. You still have to get the job done. You still have to create the product, you still have to bring that product to market, you still have to sell that product.

Yeah, just like, like IP is a defensive measure. So like if you can shift all the time and energy you spent on defense, there's like, oh, we're just gonna score more points, then you have a more fun game. Like we all like to see a football game where it's like 60 to 40, not like, like 3 to 7. So I think as long as you can spend more of your time on, on offense, you, you get more done, you get more accomplished and you know, ultimately it's a more exciting work environment. It. More better products get built. So I am pro this.

Okay, cool. Well that I just wanted to bring it to your attention, see if you had any thoughts on it. I know it's not the most common topic for us, but it made some headlines last week and I thought, hey, it's business related, let's talk about it. And obviously with us down the road, maybe Ipoing, you obviously have a lot of intellectual property around the products you built and the brand you've built. So didn't know if you had any strong opinions about that. Now, last topic for the day. We will, we will wrap up here after this one, but this is an interesting one and I apologize, I have to Find the screenshot on my phone. So give me one second here. Ah, yes. Okay, so last week, Jersey Mike's. Do you know what they do on an annual basis? Promotion that they run Jersey Mike subs.

Like, like a certain ad or like certain promo, like offer.

They do a one day a year promotion. Promotion, and it's called the Day of Giving. And basically all revenue for that one day will go to local charities around where their sub shops are located. All revenue. Very cool. Right? So they tweeted. They tweeted this after the. At the end of that day, how life feels when you've raised over 30 million for local charities during month of Giving. So they do the month of Giving, but then they do the day of giving. The Month of giving is like, I think a roundup thing. Like you can round up and that money will go to local charities. Then do a Day of Giving where. Where it's like all revenue or a percentage, I'm not 100% sure, so don't quote me on that. Goes to local charities. And then they just posted a bunch of fun emojis. Right? The sun, rainbow, butterfly hearts, whatever. Right. Like classic social media team. All right, so this was quote tweeted and they got a lot of hate online, which is, which is interesting. Someone said, I'll never understand billion dollar companies guilting customers into donating to a charity at checkout. So they can brag about it.

Yeah, but. But it's not like they're franchised. It'd be the local owners.

Right, but that's what I'm saying. So what. What I'm getting at is the fact that like, you can't even like, basically this is what I'm getting at this. Let's just give you Lee's take here. It's just people need to stop. People just need to stop posting their opinions online. Like, what? Whatever. If Jersey Mike's is doing this from a promotion, sue them. Like, I'm sorry. If they're using charity as a way to promote their business. They're horrible people. Like, I just don't care. Like, they got like. I mean, I'm talking a lot of hate online. Like, I like a lot of people because they're like, they're bragging about it. And then of course, everyone was like. And not to mention the huge tax write off. Like, everyone was talking about how, like, there's a billion dollar corporation and they're just using this as a tax write off. They're using it as a way to look good. It's like, like, yeah, what's wrong with that? Oh, yeah, and by the way, they're actually helping local charities versus you posting on Twitter, complaining about how they're helping local charities. This just got me fired up. I got really annoyed when I saw this. So I don't know if you had any thoughts on that.

Welcome to the Internet. It's like, it's like, it's like whenever we do stuff, like people. Yeah, yeah. It's the if. So, like, for example, the day of giving, it is 100% right. Revenue does go to local charities.

You did good.

I'm going to Google that. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to assume it's from the franchisee. So, like, they, they probably, in their franchise disclosure documents have to sign and saying, hey, on this day, if we are open, all revenue will go to local charities. So, like, this is actually a big pain in the butt for the corporate side to be able to have to get this in their franchise agreement. So I kind of know what this is like. So, for example, when we do the give back program, someone will make something up like they're doing this for taxes or something's like, no, like, look, it's actually really difficult for us to give our initial feedback to people. We have to put this in legal against. It's not, it's not easy. And for them to get an owner to sign that all your revenue for a day is going to be donated is not easy. And so, you know, you know, every, every good deed will go unpunished. What's the word? Whatever that, that, that terminology, it's. It's true. You try to do something good, someone's going to find some sort of, you.

Know, no good deed goes unpunished. That's what it is. That's right.

So, you know, if you try to do something good, especially like if you do it publicly, that's a challenge. That's why I've always just been like, look, I'm gonna do stuff good. Like, no one's gonna know about it, because if you do something that is good and you talk about it, then.

It'S gonna get picked apart, even if it has the best intentions. So that's why it's just, in my opinion, better. Any sort of good thing you do, just do it. Just do it behind closed doors because then you don't have to get picked apart for it.

Yeah, it's just frustrating because I feel like there are people on the Internet that can't see there are actual win. Wins in life.

Life.

Like, not everybody, not, not every situation has to have a winner and a loser. It's like, yes, Jersey Mics can get their tax write off. Cool. But we can also help local charities and make a nice promotion about it. Everybody wins. Like, why are people so mad that when somebody does something good and they publicize it, that it's a. That it's a bad thing to publicize it? You know what I mean? Like, that just bothers me.

Yeah, yeah, it's just like, like, look, you have to create an incentive to give money to charities. Otherwise it's gonna be a government program. Program. And so traditionally, a government program is less efficient than a private entity and a charity. And so what does the government do?

Same thing.

They do the same thing for affordable housing, and they do the same thing for health benefit, health care benefits. Like, give incentives to make sure that people do certain actions that are going to be good for society. And a good thing for society is that money goes to charities instead of government programs that have to support up and prop up, you know, certain classes. And so it's just a function of, you know, you are saving 15 to 30% if you're getting tax write off. So let's just all agree with the fact that you, whoever you are complaining, are not donating to these charities to, say, 15 to 30%. So why not just be happy for the people who are. That are willing to take a 70% haircut on their dollars instead of saying, hey, get a hair right off? Okay, they are giving 70% of what their actual dollars amount. Amount is. If they said 5 million, they're only giving 3 million. Okay, how much did you give? Like, so this is in general, like, when, when you do something good, I just am a big proponent of just don't tell a single soul because then you can't be misinterpreted.

Yeah, I. I agree with that. I agree with that wholeheartedly. It's just. I guess it's just a bummer to me when I see that because I was like, oh, this is really cool. Like, I saw, you know, a post about how much money they raised, blah, blah. And so I clicked that post and then. And then a related post, and then it just was all hate. It was just all hate for Jersey Mike. And I was like, how are we hating on that? Like, how? I. I don't get it. So anyways, people, people. Winners and losers.

That's why. That's why we all post negativity, is because if you post something positive, you're gonna get backlash.

Yeah, totally. Well, or here's here's a. Here's a bright idea. Don't post anything at all ever. Like, that's me. I don't. If you. I, I want here, let's see, let's see. What was, what was my last Facebook post?

But then, let's see. Then this is the thing the question is, then does. So this is my proponent for when, when to share publicly about your giving is by them saying that, do they get an extra 15 or 20% of revenue? Because people are like, hey, if all the money's going to charity, I will go get a sub sandwich at Jersey Mike's today. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's one of their best sales days. And so sometimes by publicizing what you're doing, you get more. More. You have the ability to now give more. And so that's where like, there's this, like, weird dichotomy of like, hey, am I willing to take a little bit of backlash, share publicly in order to get more attention that then allows me to give more to the, you know, charity or like, caus of my choice? And so, you know, if you share anything publicly, you're going to get any sort of backlash. So, like, if I do videos on YouTube and I share good things, then people are going to say that I'm hiding something. If I show the bad things they're going to pick on. They say, look at you. Like, so if we share a struggling owner inside of August Nation, everyone suddenly is bankrupt inside of a destination. And then if you share good ones, like, he's just trying to promote his franchise. So, like, no matter what you do, you're just going to get picked apart. And it's a matter of like, you know, it's. This is the cost you pay for the impact you want to have. And so if you want to have the impact you will have to share publicly. And if you want to have, if you're going to, if you're going to appear publicly, you will be criticized for the good and the bad. So it's just like, you know, you just got to kind of deal with it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. So my take. Take a guess when you think my last Facebook post was. And then what it was about. Just this is gamble here.

Last. Like your actual post on your personal page.

Yeah, my. I personally posted something.

My personal Facebook page. Page.

Personal Facebook page. I think it's gonna have something to do.

Something to do with baseball.

Is it?

No, no, no.

My last post. Here's. Here's the thing. My last post was August of last year, 2024 and it said proud to be a part of Augusta Nation with a repost of.

Oh, that's awesome.

Let's go, let's go. That's cool. So I don't, I don't interact on the Internet. Like I don't comment, I comment on the posts inside of Augusta Nation. I can't even tell you the last time I post I commented on a public post outside of your content. Like, dude, what's the point? Like I just don't get it anyways. So I could go on and on. But just do like, okay, we'll switch to non financial advice right there. Everybody get off the Internet more. Just like, please. Like honestly that's my non financial advice. Like get off the Internet. Even if that means listening to this less. I don't care. Like get off the Internet more. I know I said I told you. I don't know if I mentioned on the pod, but I, I did a scrub of my YouTube subscriptions as well. Now I only subscribe to five channels instead of like 50 something that I used to subscribe to. And it was like, let's just get down to the content that I actually need. Your content. So your main page, home service, millionaire Alex Hormozi, all in podcast and C suite, unfiltered. Just you know, keep those sub numbers up. So this is five channels that I subscribe to on YouTube. That is it. That's the only content I consume. Same thing on Instagram. I was, I followed 200 something people and brands. Now it's down to a 2020. Like it's just very slimmed down. So people get off the Internet more. I promise it will make you feel healthier mentally.

Let's go. Okay, so my non financial advice is I'll go technical with you on your home screen of your iPhone. This little device, this little button right here, this, this is the accessory accessibility button. You can make it to where you just tap it and immediately it goes to black and white. Yeah, it's just a shortcut because you can do it in your settings. But if you can just quickly tap that button. So it's kind of helpful especially if you're around family and things. Like if you're like it's just addictive to look at all the bright shining lights, you know. And as I get more like today, today my favorite calls are design calls for copilot. It's the best thing ever. Anyways, these are design review. So like I, I start like ah, the colors, it's so beautiful. And I get people to stay around longer and like, okay, so everyone else is doing, doing this and I'm going to turn that off. So if you're trying to focus your family that might, it might annoy them or you might feel distracted, which I'm hand up very guilty of, you know, turn into black and white. You've probably statistically reduced the usage of that advice by 50% and you will likely only use it for productivity instead of doom scrolling, et cetera, which I don't have a problem with. But nonetheless, all of a sudden it's funny because I shared like a few different memes or like videos around like marriage and stuff like that with Brianna. So now all of a sudden, like, I don't, I don't follow anyone. So like, my, my, my feed is so fickle based on like what I search on YouTube or like what I share because it'll just change immediately. And so as soon as I did like one or two of those, like, my whole feed is just like memes of marriage and like dating and stuff.

And all sorts of.

So like, it's just like I don't really have much doom scroll on because I don't have followers friends on like my personal side. So I can just switch over to my personal like immediately. It's just like the same thing. All that to say, you know, turn it off. You know, that way when you're on the toilet, you don't doom scroll as long it is helpful.

Yeah, dude, yeah. Wait till you have a kid because you look up like advice and tips. So like, same thing for me on my Instagram. Like my for you page was just like random. Like, who knew? Who knew what was going to pop up as soon as I googled a couple things about a kid or walked out a couple posts. Like, I saw millions of babies every day. I opened my Instagram. It was insane, dude.

It was like, it was probably like, dude, he shared a post.

We need to pump so much into.

His feed because I never share anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Well, appreciate your time. Thank you for taking a deep dive on all things ipo, IP and people being annoying on the Internet. That is the C suite unfiltered podcast, like, and subscribe.

Do you think for the next podcast we should just cut up a piece of the round table from tonight?

Sure. Yeah.

I think most of us, relatively, we could share. We have to look at it. But like, I think most of it, at least the announcement side we could, we could cut up. Yeah, Dude, Augusta Nation crushed it. Same store sales up 47%. The 35% number is average 47 quarterly Q1 2024 versus Q1 2025, up 47 stinking percent. I'm so happy for them. And it's gonna allow us to like, the so many of them are gonna be about 500,000 revenue after this year. It's gonna be great. So shout out Augusta Nation. You guys are crushing it. I can't wait to share the numbers tonight. And since this will go out tomorrow, we don't have to worry about, you know, spoiling it because I publicly posted 35%. But that was average store sales. This is same store sales. So the people who were in business last year compared to this year, up 47%. Let's go.

Yeah. Love it, love it, love it, love it. Very excited for that. Well, thank you all.

We'll see you. See you, Ender.