Open AI... Its bureaucratic GARBAGE! - Episode 046

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mike Andy show. We bring you episode 46 of C Suite Unfiltered OpenAI. It's bureaucratic garbage. Today, Mike and Lee are going to discuss personal improvements, rules of the game in terms of Mike's expectation for his leadership and his team members. We're going to discuss OpenAI and how it's bureaucratic garbage. You guessed it. And we're also going to discuss Augusta going public. If you're one of Mike's first employees or first franchisees, you're definitely gonna want to tune in. We're talking big payouts and we're talking drones in Africa. A lot of visions being discussed in this episode. We hope you guys stick around. Without further ado, I bring you Mike and Lee. Thank you to everybody who stuck around and watched this episode. We hope you tune in next time.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Let's go.

I'll probably post. I'll try to post this today. So recording the day before Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving to everyone listening. You got any thanksg saving plans?

Start with the hard hitting topics.

Not really. We got a ton of stuff for the the team for Thanksgiving. I like doing a lot for Thanksgiving because Christmas gets diluted. I kind of feel like everyone's getting gifts. You're buying gifts. Everyone's already in that mode.

Yeah. So Christmas bonuses.

Yeah, everything. So it's just like I like to index heavier on Thanksgiving because like I beat the rush, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get in. And, and, and so yeah, we're doing a big black Friday sale this year. Last year we kind of dipped our toe in it using conference, but this year we have some crazy awesome stuff we're doing this weekend. So I'm looking forward to that and seeing how that does.

Are you pre selling conference tickets for next year?

No, because we don't know the dates yet so we gotta be careful. I just don't want someone to have a bad experience. So we aren't doing conference tickets but we're doing it for long care, web design, all the courses and for copilot and like the deals are like crazy, like really, really, really solid. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to it.

I love it. Other thing I wanted to start the podcast with. I should have said this on the last episode but Happy anniversary. We're officially. You're in into what? The podcast.

Okay.

Happy anniversary. Yeah, yeah, we started the first episode we posted was like early November of last year.

Oh, nice.

So it's kind of wild.

Cool. I'm like all these anniversaries are Getting. Oh yeah, my admin. Has my admin reach out to you. She needs to reach out to you. You're the one person we still need your birthday from.

It's fine.

Your hard one is pinned down because no one's like your direct anyways. I'm not.

I'm. I'm an island guy.

I'm getting all of everyone's work, anniversary and their birthday on my calendar.

Yeah.

It's like every day I can send them a message and like it'll take me like two seconds a day.

Yep.

I can reach, you know, stay in contact with everyone that way. Since I don't really have as much one on one. So. Yeah, work anniversaries. I was like, where are we going with anniversary podcast?

Anniversary.

Cool.

Any. Any. Any thoughts on that?

A year in, it's kind of like everything else I'm still doing right now. It's like, I don't really have any projections where it should be at. So I'm just gonna keep doing this and like, we'll keep going from there.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel. I feel like I've learned a lot about just communication. It's very, it's. It's a lot harder to do a podcast than I thought. If you want it to be informative and have some value, it's easy to put a mic and just riff and have a conversation. But you know, like, I'm trying to research articles and like come up with, with good points or good topics of discussion and it's harder than I thought.

The best part about for me right now is the fact that you and I don't get to communicate at all basically until the day of the pod. So, like, it'll be way better just. I keep saying it, but like, it would be so much better when we're at the new headquarters, like have us all together. I can just bop in and say hello. Same thing for you. But like right now, like, literally, like around the pod is when we schedule our meetings together and talk about like life and the world. So it's good. I enjoyed that part.

Good.

For now. That has been the highlight down the road if followers come. Fantastic.

Yeah. So I wanted to ask like on. On a more personal level because you mentioned you now have an administrative assistant. I don't know if that's her official title, but we'll go with that. And you've also.

I hate, I hate bringing it up. I don't like talking about it well. But my life has significantly improved since happening here.

Well, same thing we were at the bank the other day and they asked me my job title and I was like, what do I. Like what do I say? So I just said business consultant. And it just feels so bougie to say therapist.

Yeah.

It's like. I don't know what to say, but I wanted to ask like personally, you know, you, you just. I. I've seen some changes. You got the administrative assistant. You're drinking, the jocko goes. So what do you. What are you getting into personally?

You know, I'm shifted everything back so I played. So it's funny. Getting ready for conference, I was like really trying to dial things in. I wanted to be like the. In top shape, like everything for conference. Not because I want to look good either. I just wanted to perform really well.

So totally.

I started like waking up at 3 o' clock so that my time zones when I went over to Louisville was, was fine because getting on it, getting on Stage at say 7am is 4am our time. So if you're not like ready for that, you could be a little bit off.

Yep.

So I didn't want that. I wanted to like have my eating schedule dialed in and everything. So I was starting to wake up at like 3:00'. Clock. Well, now I'm like, I love this new schedule. Yeah, I wake up every day between three and four now without an alarm. If I sleep in, it's only till 5. Like on the weekends I can't. I still don't sleep past 5am and it's really, really. I really am enjoying it.

Nice.

So that's been probably the biggest shift. So now I come into the office usually on 7, leave around 5.

On average, and then go home. And I can still walk on my treadmill for a couple hours. So it's been really good. That's like the biggest change, honestly. Yes, I have the admin assistant. Yes, I have coaching now and all this other stuff. But I think what I'm beginning to realize is like, if I don't make these changes, we're going to plateau around 10 million in revenue. Which, like, I'm not complaining, I'm very grateful. But like, I realize that people like you, Chuck, Liz, and now like a host of other people coming up, there will be no spot for them to grow into if I don't keep expanding the companies. And so it's a little bit financially pressure because like, it's like, oh man, we redline all the time because we keep growing and growing and growing. But like, I don't want you guys going stagnant and I'll lose great people if like four or five years doing the same thing.

Y.

And so it's good pressure because I know in the long run the businesses will be better because of it. But I just want to be able to create positions for people to grow into and be able to retain people if I can. So. Yeah, it just requires change. Like we're going to go from 10 million to 100 million and like, I will have to completely change the way I think about business. My schedule specifically. Yeah. And I don't like some elements of it. I'm still, I'm still coping with some elements of like, not, not. It's not that you don't care less. Yeah, you can't care because you can only care so much for so many things in one day. And so. But I enjoy it. I'm. I'm living my peak life right now. Good.

I like it. I. We can lean into this a little bit. We don't talk about the details, but we had a leadership team meeting where it was just, just you, Liz, Chuck and myself. And I love those meetings. One, because it's, it's inspiring to get on the same page with the people you're working with, you're in the Tren with on a daily basis, but you don't see them. Right. I know you're over here doing your thing, Chuck's over there, Liz is there. And then we all kind of get together and it's like, what's going on? Let's get on the same page. And I, I kind of pushed you a little bit and I just said like, well, what, what do I prioritize right now? Because. And as you summarize it, which I thought was, was a very simple way to summarize, but accurate was it's like, I have a bunch of part time jobs. So it's tough like as we grow the company to realize that you wear a lot of hats, but then it's, but then you have to step back and go, okay, but what's going to accelerate the company most and where do I best fit into that acceleration plan? And so it's going to be fun. We're going to have to figure it out.

Yes.

I don't know how much you want to talk about that, but yeah, like.

The biggest thing I'm not struggling with, I don't struggle with it. But like the thing that I am, I'm aware of is that like, I really do push my direct reports. Like probably too hard, some would say. And like, I asked Too much of them. And so I try to be careful not to. But I also realize that like part of being in an organization where your job title changes every year or two and like we're constantly growing, expanding, it requires growth and expansion at the personal level. Right. And so like the way that I'm expecting myself to change and like completely redevelop the way I think about leadership and businesses over the next couple years in order for people to. Because this is the thing I want my current team to be able to grow with me. Yeah. So that as we grow from 10 million to a hundred million, I don't have to go get executives from other teams that have experience in that low. I'd rather take my current team. And because their personal growth is fast enough, they're able to rise with the company. Because if the company is doubling and tripling, that requires the leadership to also be doubling and tripling their skillset. And if they're not, the company will outgrow the leadership team and you'll have to hire outside executives. And so that's when you hear people like even Alex Hormozi, for example, he'll be like, you know, just hire great people, like pay them way a bunch of money and you bring them in and get all their talent. I see the value of that. But there's also, there's other people that say like when you do that, you just like demotivate everyone below them because they realize they're not going to get those spots. So ideally, if everyone's on the same quest of personal growth and development and like changing the way they think and like challenging themselves, they'll gain the muscle to be able to grow with the company fast enough. That's not required. And that's the thing I'm. I don't say scared about, but like the thing that I like as much as I know I'm pushing really hard. It's like I want these people to stay with, like stay up with the company and they still be my direct reports. And.

I know that's not comfortable and I don't like putting people on comfort necessarily, but that's kind of what I've been thinking about.

Yeah, I like it. I think one, one thing you said to me, this was like, this was a while ago. So obviously things have changed. The business has grown substantially, I would say. You said this over a year ago and it was kind of a haphazard comment. And I said it to l and we both just laughed. You're like, well, I just expect you guys to self regulate. And like, I didn't take it as like a, like a slight or like, well, I don't care, like figure it out. But I think it just once again shows like the confidence you have in us. We will self regulate and if we are burnt out, if there's too much on our plate, like, we will let you know. But it also, there's, there's a point where you, if you want to grow the business, and I use this analogy on a coaching call the other day. I said you could put more on your plate, but you can't forget about what's already on the plate. And it's finding the balance of those two things, right? That's whether that's expanding your company, opening another business. It's like you already have stuff on your plate. You can't just scrape it off and make more room. You could scrape it off by selling the business or putting someone else in charge, hiring outside. But if you want to grow it the way you want to grow it, you have to always remember that that was originally on your plate. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And I think the thing that I'm really been working with the team on right now, like middle management and like even our you guys, is like, we have to take our current role, systematize it, make it better, and then have it ready to be handed off so that when more comes on your plate, it's easy to take it off your plate and like move that thing along to someone else because like, otherwise someone will get pigeonholed in the same position for years because they are the only one that knows how to do it. And so I kind of like told I don't know how much at the leadership team was like, hey, you guys all have blank checks. Like, go figure it out. Yeah. And so I know it puts a lot of pressure on though because like I know you all are like great people and want to do well and you want me to do well and you want the company to do well. So I know when I say like blank check, just go figure out and self regulate. There's a lot of pressure, but like there's no other way for me to do it because I can't micromanage all of you like you guys have. You guys all have so much on your plate. If I actually tried to be like, oh, you need to do X, Y and Z, there'd be no way we could win. Yeah, like it has to be me just like fully trusting you, saying it's a blank check and like figure this out. And I know there's a lot of pressure on you guys, and I appreciate that.

It's fun. I like it, though. I think that's part of the reason I've stuck here. I think the main reason is, like, I'm bonding your vision. You're a great boss. We are doing good work, and yes, we're making money, but we are doing, I would say, a worthy, worthy cause, as some books would describe it. Like, we are trying to help small business owners. We are trying to make workplaces a better environment. We are trying to make better leaders more transparent leaders. But I also like that we had a meeting this. This morning. I had a meeting this morning with some of the folks at the command center. And we were, you know, someone shout out Brian, I know, Alyssa. And he said, should we go around and say what we're thankful for? You know, kind of. Kind of joking. And I was like, no, let's do it. Sure, why not? Might as well.

Yeah.

And so we all went around and said what we were thankful for. And it's Augusta specific, like, working at the company. What are we thankful for? And I said, I am thankful for the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. And I said, that's because I know I can come to this meeting and if I failed big time, you guys will have my back and you'll help me out. And then if I have a really cool success, you guys will cheer for me and support me and congratulate me. And that freedom comes with both sides. You can't have freedom to succeed without freedom to failure. And I think that I'm thankful for that in this company. And that means if I want the freedom to succeed, that means I'm going to have pressure on me because there is an element of potential failure. Yeah, that's how I look at it.

Like yesterday, for example, I had a meeting with. Sorry, I have a bit of a runny nose on the week after training. And then I. Yeah, 48 videos on the weekend for what? Email sequence for copilot. And then a whole bunch of. I send. Still send videos. People like saying, thank you. So anyways, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, yesterday I have a meeting with Liz at the end of the day. And so I was like, recapping the day and what meetings I had. And so I was talking about my meeting with copilot team. And I basically said, like, what we were doing what I said to them. And like, she was like, that's a lot of pressure. And like. And because I basically, I like, in hindsight I was like, that was kind of a dumb thing to say in terms of like what I was saying. I was like a lot of pressure but basically I was like, just FYI, like we're gonna be like 3 to 4 Xing this company in the next like 8 months and expect that if you can't 3 or 4X your personal development, I'm gonna have to replace you. I wasn't like that. I heard that.

You said it exactly.

Not like that. But it was essentially like, hey, I want you. What it really was like I want our current like support, sales and.

Product person that are direct reports to me. I want you to be my direct reports. As we grow this company, we're going to 3 or 4x that's going to put more pressure on the business and require me and all of us to change and improve. I don't want to have to replace you with someone else from the outside because you don't grow and expand. Here are these books.

Please them become better.

And I see how that could be kind of taken wrong. It was like, kind of like what's like get on the boat or like, you know, take. But I also want to like make it like.

If I was working someplace and I have worked in an employee before, I just want to know how to win inside the rules of the game. Right. And so I keep coming back to this and that is like it's not the right rules, but these are the rules of the game. Yeah. And I'm going to make them crystal clear. So you're never guessing how to win. And like for, for like that's why like the internal mic minutes and stuff, it's like I want to make it really, really clear if you want to win, this is what's required.

Yeah.

And this is how you lose. And for them I was like, I try to make it really crystal clear. Is like I don't want to be a surprise one day. I'm like, oh, I'm hiring a new head of product. I'm hiring a new ops person. And they're like, that's me. It's like, well yeah, but the company's 5x in the past year and like you're kind of not cutting it anymore. I don't want that conversation. Right, right. And if it does come up, I want it to be a matter of one on ones up until that time where they are cognizant of the fact they can't deliver that level and they are going to have someone above them eventually. But I don't want to be a surprise. I don't want it to be one day. I'm like, you know, just not cutting a lot of leads now. And like, I think I'm gonna have someone else do sales.

Yeah.

Like, I don't want that ever conversation to have happens. Like, I want to be really crystal clear if there's like things that like, I think you need to improve at.

Yep.

And so like, you know, one of the goals after the leadership team is like, hey, we don't want you to have five more part time jobs. Like the goal is to try to get to where you can focus on selling. Yeah. And you can focus on getting the right people into a destination. So. Oh, I don't know where I was going with all that, but that was the meeting yesterday. I probably put like, it could be definitely taken incorrectly, but the whole point of it was like, I just want this team to, to do well. And I want you guys to be the ones that when we're, you know, $100 million company that you're still my direct reports. I love you a lot.

Yeah.

And whether it be at Augusta or copilot or whatever. And so like I want you, I want to all be ringing the stock bell, whatever it's called. The ballot.

Yeah, the nasd.

Exactly, dude. So that's, that's, that's what I've been focused on recently.

So what books did you recommend for them?

Yeah, several. So there's Product like Growth by Web Bush. No, I was thinking Jeb Bush.

Jeb Bush, please clap.

It's Jeb Something. I forget. Product like Growth Product Roadmap was one other one, Lean Startup, but that's an older one. There's basically four and all pro, like around product. Yep. Oh, the other one's like Never lose a Customer by Joey Something. That was for support. So I feel like we have a really strong team and I really just want to keep them. And I feel like they're all super motivated. They're young. We're all young. Yeah. We call ourselves the tech bros. Like.

Yeah, they're good dudes.

Yeah. So like we have a good culture and I just want to keep that. And so I wanted to make it crystal clear so I'm never thinking like, oh man, I might have to let them go because they're not like expanding enough. Right. And if they're not, then I can just have an open conversation. Like, hey, just FYI, like you're falling behind and like you'll need to either pick up a slack or make a conscious decision not to Sake, a family or more like work life balance or you want to be able take more vacations. Totally fine.

Right.

I just don't want you to be surprised when I replace you because I can't have someone bailing on me for three or four weeks in the middle of spring rush, things like that.

Yeah, I think that's totally fair.

Yeah.

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Sweet. Well, I do have one topic that we probably people will probably want to hear your thoughts on. It's hard to stay educated on all this stuff because it moves very fast. So we are recording today, Wednesday, November 22nd. Friday. Last Friday the 17th, OpenAI kicked Sam Altman out. They just said, nope, you're no longer on OpenAI. We're restructuring the board. Crazy chaos. Everything flipped upside down at OpenAI.

The previous.

Emmett, the previous CEO of Twitch was going to come at the CEO of Open.

Yeah, yeah. And Twitch is like falling apart from the inside out with their creators. They're basically having like a rebellion with their creators on.

I don't know if he's still a CEO though.

I don't think he is.

No, I don't think. I think he. When they sold the Amazon, he stayed for like a year or two and bail, I believe. And from what I've heard, he's a very good executive.

That tangent to that Kick, have you heard about Kik? They're the new kind of disruptor and digital content creators. Streaming.

Yeah, I've heard of it.

Yeah, they're signing huge deals with big like more video game based content creators.

When I hear that now, I do not care. It's like it's like there are so many platforms like Quibi that came up offering tons of money to creators. There was the one that has a ninja and like literally doesn't exist now. That got him away from Twitch.

Oh yeah. Is someone, is he on Kick now?

I don't know. Yeah, but like they pay so much money for these creators and they, they forget to realize like, like for example Spotify their deal with Joe Rogan's Coming up. Yeah, they're not going to pay him again. But like, what's going to happen to their subscribers? There's tons of people that like just get Spotify for that podcast. Yeah.

Oh, totally.

So it'll be really interesting to like. I don't think buying a creator is a great strategy. I get why they do it. In the short term it usually works out well for them, but in the long term, I just never see it work out great. Mm. Like, I can't remember a time where someone like bought a creator and it like led to long term growth of that platform with the creator not being there. Mm.

Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. I've just seen a shake up and we're on a tangent now, but I've seen a shake up. A lot of creators are upset with Twitch and how they handle their revenue shares and how they treat their creators. Facebook basically is saying like, they're not going to reinvest in like Facebook streaming and like the creators that are signed with Facebook and there are creators that are like, well, I signed like a two year deal. What's up with that?

There's no money in live streaming.

Yeah. And so a lot of people are switching to YouTube. YouTube and Kick seem to be the two main ones now that you're seeing. So like two of the big, big streamers that I, that I know of is like Tim the tap man, Dr. Disrespect. Like they're both have huge contracts with YouTube and now people are like, okay, they legitimized it. Now let's all start moving to YouTube.

I think YouTube will become the.

Yeah. Anyways, that was a tangent. But it's fun Streaming. It's interesting. We had a couple guys that stream actually, so at the, at our. On our team. So.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh like. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

They go on stream.

Okay.

It's cool. Anyways, so Friday, Last Friday the 17th, Sam Altman kicked out of OpenAI. Sunday, he tweets he is joining Microsoft and to work as like the head of their AI division or whatever layer of bureaucracy he was going to fold into at. At Microsoft as of last night, November 21, he tweets Sam Altman. At 10pm he is returning to OpenAI. So any initial thoughts on just this overall tech shakeup?

Yeah, like the thing is, I think a lot more information will come out in the next couple of weeks as to why the board initiated that. Because they originally they said like it was like a very gray response. It's like not aligned and blah, blah, blah that there's a few things that I took away from it so far, and I'm not following it as close. I should especially like last night even know that I saw the headline that he was going back and that was it. So I think in a couple of weeks we're going to know the initial, like, what initiated them to kick him out.

The bottom line is a few things. Number one, board didn't have any technical or business experience. The vast majority of them didn't. And a lot of the people that left OpenAI's board was like, Elon. I think Mark Benioff might have been on it too, from Salesforce, et cetera. So they all left. Right. Especially when they went away from like, being nonprofit to being for profit. And so there's a bunch of like, basically celebrities on the board. Useless pieces of the garbage. Not the people. But the fact that you do have a board member on, on Open AI that doesn't know technology. Like, you should go fly a kite. Like, what value you bring besides notoriety and name. Power.

Yeah.

So anyways, power of board is now, now going to be questioned massively. Like, this is a big reason, like when I, when I, when I talk about, like, the governance of our companies. Like, I don't want any board, I don't want any outside because, like, they can kick me out.

Yeah.

They can do stupid stuff like this. Like, they just made 85% of the employees mad enough to go join Microsoft, their arch rival. Yeah. And like, literally Microsoft is still even right now, like, making room for them in their San Francisco office. They expect them all to come over. Yeah. So a few things that. Number one, the way that the, the governance structure was set up with the board, that's like a big thing. You're trying to be innovative. Be careful who's on your board, especially if they have the power to kick you out. I was going to tweet out on Saturday. I was gonna say, mark my words, in three years, no one will know. Remember what Open AI is without Sam Altman.

Yep.

Because I really do believe, like, without Sam, he was like the last of like the main core group that started that like actually had some vision around AI versus everyone else is just looking as like this money grab.

Yep.

And so I was going to tweet that. Didn't tweet it out. And now I don't know if I.

Should have said that.

And I was like, see, now a week later he's joining back in or if it was like, it was a dumb. If it was, it was just like because like the winner in all of this, the winner of all this is Microsoft. Microsoft played this all like a flute, dude. They have, they literally had 650 of OpenAI's team wanted to come join them because they basically, hey, we're going to take Sam, your leader. All the employees essentially like 85% of them wanted to go join him.

Yep.

And it shows the power of the founder. I think boards still don't understand that and private equity doesn't understand that. And that's why when they get rid of the founder and they make them unhappy and they leave, they lose the passion, the vision of the company, but they also lose all their core team members. They actually believe in the vision of the company instead of just like a job.

Yep.

And so if they lose, like we still know what's going to happen. But if there's a shakedown where actually Sam does leave and takes 650 of the 800 employees of OpenAI, OpenAI is demolished. Yep. They are toast. They are done. Their only unique advantage is the fact that they have the best brain power in the world on AI working at one spot. And so it is undervalued just how important that is and especially when it comes to something as cutting edge as technology. So Microsoft won massively. They played this all like so well. They own 49% of OpenAI. They essentially now in their back pocket have, have Sam Altman and all the employees and they host all of the, all of the technology. And so they basically most of their investment was just Azure credits which is like soft like cloud service for them because it takes so much compute power. So all of that say, I'm sure you have more to say on that but I think the big, the biggest takeaway I had was like governance structure and board members. It was how the CEO of Microsoft don't know how to say his name very well could. Dude, how he played the media like a absolute flute and everything was positive for Microsoft and then also the power of the founder on the originating team like Sam ALTMAN leaving and 85% of people want to walk out. That's impressive, like kudos to him. Yeah. So anyways, that was some like my immediate takeaway.

Yeah, you're spot on. So what I was going to reference here is an article from Bloomberg published this morning. So it's going to be the most up to date information change tomorrow. And it all changed tomorrow.

He's starting, he's joining X.

So the decision to restore him, Sam Altman to the world's best AI known startup Marks a significant victory for Microsoft Corporation, which worked with fellow investors to reverse Altman's firing. CEO Satya Nadella, that's the CEO of Microsoft.

Publicly supported Altman throughout the turmoil and briefly agreed to hire him at Microsoft to start a new in house research group. Microsoft shares gained as much as 1.8% to $379.79 per share on Wednesday morning. So this morning in New York hitting their highest level in record.

So you're right there, there's a, there's another note here. Let me find it in the article that talks about the employees. Within hours after Sam's firing, most of OpenAI's 770 employees signed a letter to the board saying they might quit and join Microsoft unless all directors resign. And Altman was reinstated.

That's the biggest loser is that board. They are shooting themselves in their foot. Dude. That was a dumb move and this is like literally a shot. This is so good. In my opinion, it's like checkboards that kind of trying to consistently do stupid stuff to the founders and then you just like what they did. Steve Jobs kick him out and what do you have to do? Bring them back years later and he gets everything. Sam Altman has all the cards in his deck. When he comes back OpenAI, it's like, okay, so yeah, I have the entire employee force workforce behind me. I'm going to reset the entire board. I'm likely going to walk with billions of dollars because I'm going to reset the cap table. Like he, he also won massively because he basically just proved he is the card that holds the entire thing together. So he is so much more valuable to the company now and he's going to be able to choose his board likely. So it's, it's a good thing for OpenAI to like reset these goofball boards that have absolutely no idea what they're doing, have a founder that actually has the passion and has the entire workforce behind them. Like, it's awesome.

Yep. Yeah. So the article finishes with this. I think it kind of summarizes exactly what you were saying. The boardroom drama carried echoes of other core corporations in Silicon Valley history. Apple co founder Steve Jobs was fired as CEO in 1985, only to return more than a decade later. Twitter CEO founder Dorsey was pushed out in 2008 and came back as CEO seven years later. So they're saying it just kind of, it's just kind of repeating the annals of history in these big corporations. And yeah, he's basically going to restructure the Whole board is what they, what they say. In this article it says that investors of OpenAI were blindsided by this removal and Microsoft backed the startup with more than a $10 billion stake.

Yeah, yeah. The, the thing is, the thing about too is like there's drama and I don't like drama around a company. So I think the loss for OpenAI as AI is like you just created battle lines and I don't think that's healthy for an organization. And so it's just, it's. These are all things like I just had to take note of because we'll get bigger, you know, in 15 or 20 years. I do want to take the company public and I will make sure I have all like, you know why this drama doesn't happen at Facebook as often? Because Mark.

Zuckerberg can do whatever he wants. He has all voting power. Yeah. So if he wants to kick people off the board, he'll kick people off the board. If he wants to do something in business, he will do it. Now sometimes he'll make mistakes and spend way too much money on the metaverse. Right. But he is unchecked in power. Like no one could kick him out. Yeah. And so you've had this, you know, two decade run where Facebook just kicking butt. And the reason is because you have consistency at the top. And so I think all these companies that where they're switching out CEOs every year, every two years because the board keeps flipping around and like changing out the executives, that is like unhealthy for a company. And yes, they'll make decisions that are bad, they'll make poor decisions, they'll do business things that are wrong. But having consistency at the top is underrated because you've, you stop dividing the workforce into like, I'm for them, I'm for them, like competing. No one's guessing who's in control at Facebook.

Yeah.

And so no one's guessing who's in control.

X. Yeah.

And these, why these companies do so well is because like there's consistency at the top. There's no battle lines, there's no democracy of like, oh, who you for? And like voting for this person is like they're the leader and there's no questions.

Yeah.

And this is where it's like you want people to be able to feel like they contribute and be able to have a say in what's going on the business as a team member. But you also, the vision part needs to be like singularly clear and it needs to be like ran like a benevolent dictatorship and these are consistently the companies that do the best are the ones that are ran like a benevolent dictatorship. The ones where everyone can vote. You have battle lines all over the place. And so this is why, like, in America, we're all split. Like, democracy is great, I agree. But we see democracy typically over time decline because we all start fighting each other. And so that's what I get afraid of. Like big organizations like the government, and you start having way too much democracy or politics. You have way too much bureaucracy. That's the word I was looking for. Red tape, etc. Caused by everyone has their own free will and they can vote for anyone they want. And therefore we now stop fighting each other. And now we have red versus blue. And you know, all this other garbage going on when it's like in a dictatorship, you don't even. You don't even have to think about it. It's like, it's going to happen. There's a clear direction. And I don't think dictatorships are right for nations, but for companies in a microcosm, it's like, treat people the best you possibly can, but be very, very clear at where the company is going. And if people are fine with it, great. If not, they get off the bus. And that's like a very.

Not fun thing to say to team members. But I think being part of a company where there's not division of who's the leader. And like, are we going to Microsoft? We're going to. Who are you for Sam? Are you against Sam? Are you signing this petition? I think it's a bunch of garbage that I would not want to deal with as a team member. And I'd rather have singularity of focus, leadership, and consistency of vision.

I like it. I agree with you. But I have. I have a question, because someone asked me this on an introductory call to Augusta. They said, what happens when the company goes public? They essentially were saying, we agree with, you know, the general values that Mike and your team demonstrates. We think it's a good brand. We think you guys are doing the right things. But what happens when you go public? Right. Mike has said 15, 20 years. We package it all together. We go public. So what's the initial reaction to that? What's your reaction?

I'm gonna make a ton of money.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna do two things with that money. First, three things with the money. One, I'm gonna be able to pay back the people that were probably underpaid for 10 or 15 years and that never left the boat. And there'll be, there'll be like between now and then is not a clear linear path. So people that are willing to go through that and probably get paid hopefully well, but not like what they could or should and maybe they were paid correctly. But being loyal to the cause for that long, I just want to pay them out. Yeah, my lifestyle will change none, but that's the first thing I want to do, be able to pay people out. I also want to give like the first 10 franchisees, if they're still with me. I want to make them millionaires. Yeah, just give them a bunch of cash.

You bet on me. So here's your payout.

Yeah, paying out people, very important to me. It's like if you bet on me for 20 years, here, here's your payout. Like, you win. Second thing I want to do is be able to do what I talked about conference and that is essentially do something back in Africa. And it's probably going to be around drones of like getting supplies, supplies, medical supplies. There's a company I'm following quite closely that's kind of doing it with planes already and they launch them and they're great. But I want to do something around that. It's going to take a lot of money. Third thing is I still have a lot more money and I'm going to use that money to basically take what we've started and just be able to have like the fuel to just like in the public market, what gets rewarded is growth. And so right now we are capital constrained due to the fact that we don't have any debt. Well, we have a little bit of debt that we took out for the headquarter building. I basically used ERC money to help fund us, but besides that there's no debt. I don't have any outside investors. And so that's great.

As long as I can retain control of the whole company using voting shares, but then have the capital of the public market to be able to go scale. I think we just like completely blow everything out of the water. I think we can like, we'll be growing and then we'll hit that where I have a bunch of money and we'll just go to the next 10x. Yeah, like totally. Because you get, you get public perception. People actually like, oh, like they're a legitimate company because they're public now. We can see their finances. There's less of this, like, oh, he's an Internet marketer. Right. There's always gonna be that notion. As long as I'm an influencer. Yeah. By the time we go public, you know, that will be, like, also very cemented. Like, we'll have probably TV shows and the whole nine yards. But it's a matter of, oh, like, he's legit because he is a publicly traded company that every single quarter has to literally publicly trade that show their finances. And we can see the revenues and we can see all these things. He's not making stuff up. So I think it'll legitimize everything we're doing. I think it'll get on the radar of everyone very quickly, and then we'll be able to, like, expand way faster. We'll have the money to build things like I have in my head, but I know it take millions of dollars to build, especially on the software front. And when it comes to robotics, like, I. If I had $50 million right now to go burn. Burn as in, like, invest?

You'd spend it.

Pretty quick robotics, dude. I could think we could do mowers. I'd really like, but, like, I know that would be tons of money. And there's no market to go sell. Like, right now, software is easy because if I can build a really good CRM, people will buy it, and so I can make something sustainable. And I think we will. But, like, in 10, 15 years, I need money to go build robotics and play around and break it because no one. No one wants to buy it.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of these manufacturers going off doing a little bit wrong. So.

That'S like, way down the road, but it's gonna take a ton of money. Yeah. So if I can go take the thing public, have a ton of cash to go play with that, I think I can do way more good for the industry. And then, like, just we just like 10x the media side. Like. Yeah, Like, I have. Yeah.

Dave Ramsey, bro, Do bigger.

Way bigger. Yeah. Like, I want to do some really cool stuff, and I want to make it where it's like, there's no reason why if you have that information, you can't succeed as a business owner. And it's like plug and play and. Yeah. That's like the long term. But, like, I need a lot of money. Yeah. And it sounds like, stupid, but, like, I need tons of money.

Yeah. Let's. Let's hone it in.

Okay.

To the specific person, though.

Okay.

Like, what's. How's it gonna affect them?

Right.

Going back to the.

Like, they have way more brand awareness at Augusta. Yeah. Because now I'll be able to afford some crazy stuff.

Yeah.

Right. I want to Do I would want to do national campaigns when we go public to be like, promote so much brand awareness to Augusta. That will help with selling franchises. But more importantly, I want owners, when they join, like, to already have 50 leads, like, literally the first week, because, like, everyone knows who you are and you sign up, it's like, bam, there you go. If you can do that and you can replicate that, like, it's insane.

Yeah.

So it'll help the owners there, but more importantly, to help the industry, because I'll have the money to go do some stuff. I really want to do that. This will take millions and millions of dollars. Yeah. Like, right now I've spent.

I've burnt about 800.

About 800,000, conservatively. $800,000 on copilot. But now we have revenues coming in, and I expect that by next year, I'll be able to start, you know, get taking distributions. I. It's profitable, at least. I always say that because, like, what'll happen is we make more money and I'll sleep.

Yeah.

Like, we got two more devs starting next week. We hire another support person. Like, I'll probably do that, but, like.

That $800,000 becomes 8 million. If I went into robotics or, like, other things that I want to do, I think would actually have, like, crazy impact. But I need way more money.

Yeah.

And I don't have $8 million right now to go, like, burn on that. And so it's just like, stages. And some of it is, like, the part. Part used to be most frustrating for me is, like, man, like, I know what I need to do, but I just need more money. And, like, it's not going fast enough now. I'm like, I love what I'm doing. I enjoy every single day that I wake up. I'm thrilled to wake up and, like, work hard and. And it's all I want to do. And I'm going to enjoy the next 15 or 20 years until I get to that point. But that is the goal. Yeah. And we will take it public. I'll make a bunch of money. And I think if I make a bunch of money, it'll have positive impacts on team members, the owners of Augusta, and the industry down the road.

I like it. Cool.

Like, I don't need the money.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I love my life, dude. Yeah. Seriously, dude. I'm like, I literally, it's very fortunate and somewhat privileged to say this.

Yeah.

But it is, like, every year goes by is better year.

Yeah.

I'm thrilled, dude. I love my life right now. I'M very thankful. Very, very satisfied. And I was like, are you happy? It's like, did you watch the Graham Stephan Grant Cardone interview? It was a little unhinged. Okay, so check it out on financial advice.

There we go. Perfect.

Watch the iced coffee hour. Grant Cardone interview. He's a little strange. I'm not going to deny that. All right. Very strange.

Grant.

Grant. Yeah. Lots of different, like, ways he communicates even is, like, very weird.

Yeah.

Okay. This is. This is important. The connection he has with his daughters is unquestioned, and that is something that I really admire. And the reason is because she was, like, behind the camera. And, like, halfway through, they're like, hey, you should come on. And, like, they kind of split the microphone between Grant and her. And that connection between father and daughter was like, okay, he did something right.

Yeah.

And, like, they have a nanny that, like, schooled them, essentially, and all that sort of thing. So I took note of that because, like, when I'm his age, because he's older and they had kids when they're older, that's probably what ended up happening to me. Like, I was like, that's something to be admired. And as much as I might question the way he sells or he talks even to people and, like, it's the way he kind of communicates. Some things can't be denied. And that was. As much as I like to bag on people, if there's positives, I'll be honest about, like, that was impressive to me and something that I would like to have one day.

That's respectable. I will have to check that out. All right, well, since we're not financial advice, here's mine. All right.

It's.

You're.

You're.

It's not for you. So just, you know, you don't. Like, you make your spinach omelettes, you know, and your one pan and your one fork.

Yeah. Right.

You know, keep it simple. And protein pucks, Protein box. So I. I recently was. Was gifted a secondhand Blackstone griddle. Do you know what these are?

No.

So they are. It's like a barbecue.

Okay.

But instead of, like, it's open, faced with a grill. It's a big giant.

Yeah, yeah.

Propane, but it's a big, giant cast iron, like, skillet.

Okay.

So just a flat top.

Oh, just think about, like, a flat.

Think about hibachi.

Whole thing.

The whole thing, I think, like, hibachi.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's awesome.

So that's.

Why not financial advice? Yeah. You do it outdoors.

How often do you do It.

Oh, dude, I've got, I got it maybe a month and a half ago and I've used at least two. Two times a week.

Two times?

No, no. Two times a week.

Really?

Yeah, it's. Wow. Yeah, it's sweet. So if you like that kind of like cast iron skillet style cooking or flavoring, it's awesome.

Because my philosophy on things like that really, you don't use it every week. It needs to go.

Yeah.

So if you're using it twice a week. Dude, let's go.

I think in the summer. Well, that's. We're in. It's raining. Yeah. It gets dark at cold.

Yeah, dude.

So I popped the garage open. The garage lights are on and I'm just there. Yeah, it's dark. Yeah, Yeah. I love it. So when it's summer, I'm going to use that thing every day. Super easy to maintain.

Classic dad move. Let's go.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fantastic. I love it, I love it. So check them out. Blackstone. You get a small one. The small ones are like 250.

Okay.

The big ones are a little bit more.

Do you like stir fries or meat or what are you doing?

So I've done like smash burgers. I've done.

Okay, so what's the difference between that and just like doing a frying pan in your kitchen?

Well, I mean it's just easier, I would say, cuz like a frying pan, you, you, you're limited to the space. The one I have is like a 36 inch. So it's like, it's the size of this table.

Got it. So just like the, the Big Mac kind of like. Yeah, just make it bigger. Yeah, exactly.

So yes, you can do it in a pan.

My omelets just like 10, 10 eggs at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, but it's, but it's easier to clean. It's easier to maintain. You have more space to work. So I did like, we did some Italian chicken sandwiches. So do some seasoned chicken breast and then you get your peppers and your onions frying on the other side. You toast the buns over here. So you got it all there and then you just. It's awesome, dude.

It's hilarious. Yeah, good for you.

I'm a huge fan.

Hey, I. One of these days I'll show me. I'll talk about non financial advice, how I do. How you can do omelets for the whole week with one frying pan. Never having to clean it. Yeah, you do. You use the fat from the cheese as like your base.

Your base. Yeah.

And you don't put the cheese on top of it because then that way there's no stick.

Yeah.

The cheese melts. You flip it that bad boy over. You got to have a good frying pan. But what's nice if you have the small frying pan, it's all the same shape. Yeah, Always the same shape versus that. My problem with that big one, it would be like it could get all fair. Yeah.

My first omelet was rough on it. I wasn't on the most level ground, so the egg started running and I was like, oh, no. So yeah, I got, I got. I got to learn. But I will say my first steak was perfect.

Perfect, perfect. All right, well, I don't cook steak.

Much, so come on over.

All right, dude, that's it. Awesome.

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