Tattoo Regrets and Ai Fast Food - Episode 060

Welcome back. Another episode. C Suite unfiltered. Yeah. So afternoon episode. Afternoon episode for us. Yes. Got a new, new logo. Someone mentioned they were like. But you just got the cups. This is a great gift for my friend Braden. These will always be, you know, Nostalgia.

Yeah, nostalgia.

It's like throwback jerseys. Yeah, dude. Right. I haven't officially changed the logo on YouTube, so I'm not sure. I just want to mess with something. So just, you know, any feedback is great. All right, well, we got a couple articles to go over and, you know, maybe. Maybe it'll be a shorter episode, depending on your thoughts on these. Maybe it'll be a longer one.

Do you happen to Tesla's earnings last night?

No, I did not. Should we start right there?

Well, Elon teased getting a cheaper version of the car in 2025. So that was interesting. But, like, yeah, it was a. It was a mixed bag, but, hey, the stock went up 10. Mostly on that. And so. But basically it's like, don't buy the stock if you don't think we're going to be able to do what we're saying in the AI. Like, it's not worth that kind of thing.

Yeah.

So, you know, I thought was really interesting, you know, I was going to bring up at the pod was Tesla literally sent out a email to all their shareholders. Did you get this?

No, I told you, I'm not a shareholder.

Okay.

I joined late and I've sold and bought, but I currently know.

And. And it's literally an email about voting for Elon's pay package. Yeah, dude, look it up. Just do Tesla.

I don't know, pay Elon website, something like that. Say, yeah, Cheryl's reading. Oh, you got to go down right now. Yeah. 10 incorrect servant. No, Green state.

Says an email. That sounds incorrectly. Yeah, Okay. I don't know at the top of my head, I could probably pick it up actually real quick, but basically it literally lays out. And at first I was like, oh, this is a scam. I was like, there's no way that Tesla would email everybody and be like, hey, please vote on this package.

Tesla shareholders, or Tesla tries to revive Elon Musk's big payday after court rejected it. Yeah, well, it's Wall Street Journal subscription paywall. We're not gonna have a paywall on cc.

Oh, man. Okay, I'll have to get it for you later. But basically, they send it out to all their. All their people, and it lays out, like, six reasons why it's important that they have it long term. Like, set up this way and there's gonna be a vote and things like that. Okay, so, like, do you want to give this billionaire $50 billion more? Yes or no? But the bottom line is, and this is the part where Elon has a lot of leverage, and he alluded it to it in the earnings call last night, and that was basically like, he kind of is using this as leverage. If you don't give this to me, I'm going to take my, like, the AI project and not make it part of Tesla and, like, the robotics and stuff. Like, he could just like, be like, oh, yeah, we're going to make that into a different company. And so that was kind of his, like, underhanded threat. And then at the same time saying, like, if you don't believe that AI is going to be like the thing in, like, robotics, et cetera, you shouldn't be investing in Tesla. Yeah, so he basically said that and then basically said, if this doesn't work out, I might just have to pull AI out and do it separately from Tesla.

Huh. I like it.

So he's definitely playing the cards on that one.

Okay, interesting, interesting.

This is the thing I think of is like, does he deserve it now? Maybe people can question it. The thing is, in 2018, everyone laughed at him when he. He basically said he's going to like, 20x the company. And they were like, in the middle of production hell. And everyone. Yes, that pay package approved. I still remember reading it. I tell you this, I remember 2018. I was walking from the parking lot at a Mariners game to Safeco Field. Yeah. And now T Mobile Park. And I still remember reading the news article as I was walking to the game. And like, that's crazy. Like, he would make $50 billion if he hits all these things. There's no way he's gonna be able to create a business that's worth 5 or $600 billion. And sure enough, he did it.

How does that work, though, with a publicly traded company? Cause obviously it was publicly traded in 2018. So he's basically saying, hey, if I hit these marks, is it a contract? If I hit these marks, compensation plan.

It'D be like, me, you get no salary, but if you hit these benchmarks, you get these money unlocks all the stock. And so then there was one guy in Delaware that was like, hey, he owned nine shares.

Yeah, we talked about that.

And then, then part of that same thing, they're saying they want to move back to. To Texas. Like, reincorporate back in Texas instead of Delaware because of all of this. So it's, it's interesting. Yeah.

So it's kind of, it's a little bit of politicking. But yeah, it's weird when a CEO has to like create leverage within his own company. But I guess because it's publicly traded, he does have to answer to the shareholders.

It's amazing how even so such a large company can still be dictated by an influencer. And that's ultimately Elon Musk is. Yeah, it is. The Tesla is the largest creator LED business. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. It's very interesting. I was just talking about before we hit record about why I was doing the logo redesign. Almost every like business or economics podcast is like a picture of the host and I was like, well I could just put a picture of you, which, which is fine. And I'm like, if I put a picture of me that's not going to get any recognition. So I just went with words. But it is like all like content drives everything nowadays. It seems like it's wild. So someone, here's a, here's a thought because this is a business person. Content creator Bryce Closing actually asked this in the comments a couple weeks ago. I never asked. What are your thoughts on Patrick Bet? David? Oh, entrepreneur slash content creator.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

His PHP thing is a bit of a pyramid scheme. So he sold it for like a couple hundred million dollars. Yeah. But it's kind of a pyramid team. You sell insurance, the seven people underneath like layers get insurance. I like him as a guy. He has good values. I think.

He'S really a news person though now. Like they always redigesting and regurgitating like news articles and like in their little like sphere and they do different shows and like I get it and that's great. But I like him as a person. I think that I would not want to build the PHP business as like my claim to fame as I grow my businesses. That just, just my personal thing though.

Yeah. I just looked up an article from Finance Hill and it said that Patrick Bat Davis was about how did he get rich, where did he come from originally? Born in Iran, family fled when he was 10 years old, came to the US. He was always a talent for. He always had a talent for inspiring people. He used his skills to write books and recruit members for his PHP agency. He was able to interview some low level celebrities, attract large crowds and basically crowdsourced the PHP program. Is basically what this article saying.

Yeah, yeah. Like some of the training inside of PHP because I've actually seen it is a Little bit misleading. Okay. In that, like, it makes it sound like everyone's going to be successful. I think that you can say that with confidence if 20, 30% of people are successful. But when 1% of the people that sign up make more than a living wage.

I just don't think it's necessarily right to pitch it as like, everyone in here is winning and like, and they show the top, like top five or 10 people. And it's like, well, the hundredth person made didn't make enough money. Like make a living wage. And you made all the money on the people buying products from each other. So like, again, not against him though. He's a great dude. It's still just. That is just another form of marketing and spreading your message in terms of how you do marketing. So kudos to him for that.

Yeah. What do you think about valuetainment? Great name.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I like the name. I like the name. I'm just not. I'm just not attracted to, like, I don't know, I'm just not attracted to him as much.

Fair.

I don't know why.

I think. Have you listened to any of stuff on family, though?

Yeah. He wins huge points.

Like, I feel like he would really align with a lot of his.

All that stuff. Yes. I guess I just immediately when people start giving their opinions on every little thing. Yeah. I almost go like, okay, I'm always hearing you give your opinions. How do you know, like, how do you have an educated viewpoint on all of these topics, whether it be Candace Owens getting fired or like something in the Middle east or like, like, like that's when you become a talking head in the news. And that's when I'm like, I don't know if I trust you. Because I would rather, if I was really interested in like the, the conflict in Israel. I want to go talk to someone that they studied that their entire life, not someone who like read headlines and then had to make ClickBait titles or YouTube. And I know what that game is like and I just stay in business. Cause that's all I know. But if I was trying to do business and then talk about sports and then talk about politics and then talk about economics and have educated POVs and all those things, either A, you're a genius or B, you're talking with half data and you're talking with headlines or someone's feeding you information as a producer and that's usually what you think of when you think about, like mainstream media. Yeah. Now, would I rather listen to Patrick David than CNN or Fox News. Yes. Yeah, so I'm not against him at all. I think he's great business person. I personally just don't want to build my reputation the way he has.

Yeah, fair enough.

Not to say that his is bad.

Yeah.

To your point, the family side and like, his values, I think is like, really, really solid.

Like, yeah. Like his advice to, like, young men or, you know, how your family should operate. Like, and I don't know what is tongue in cheek and what isn't, but I would agree with a lot of the family values he practices. But yeah, it's always interesting. I think as a society, we're. We're drawn to those people that, like, have an answer for everything. So it's hard to see, like, when are those answers like a smokescreen or a facade where they're just talking out of one side of their mouth and when are they actually educated and have a good opinion on something.

And it might just be like, part of his brand that pushes me away, but because I always like in suit Thai three piece situation because it is like his brand is very buttoned down and that's not a bad thing. You do come across as the expert. But I also feel like there is a level of, like, being authentic and like, sharing what you're like the downsides, sharing what's not going well, sharing when you're struggling. And I don't know if his brand reflects. He can't share that weakness.

Yeah.

Because it is like, it's a lion. And like, we are like this elite. It feels very elite.

Totally kind of untouchable, right?

Yeah. Personally, I don't connect with those people. I'm not saying they're horrible people. I. At all. There's. There are. There's definitely value to what they talk about. Hence the name value table.

Great.

All righty.

Well, we'll switch it up here. So I have a. I have a TikTok for you.

Oh, wow.

And I have an article to supplement.

Dude, we're going to get banned from Congress here.

I know. All righty. So this is a TikTok that someone posted. I don't know where they are. Obviously I'll try to give credit where credit's due, but this is a TikTok that is titled AI is taking over. And this is someone driving through a Wendy's. I will try to share it on the screen.

I love this. Dude. This makes so much sense. Wendy's. What would you like? Can I have a chocolate Frosty?

Which size for the Chocolate Frosty? Medium.

Can I get you anything else today? No, thank you.

Great. Please pull up to the next window.

Dude, that's sick. The thing is, I think it'll only get better because like the biggest thing that machines like that and Max for example is those are long gaps.

Yes.

They could be shortened and they will. Those will refine it. Yes. But there's no reason to have to talk to a human right there.

Yeah.

It's a perfect use of AI.

Yeah.

And what's really cool about that is you get to see what they are interpreting the words so you can know if it's going off base. The same way that like you're like, well, they're not gonna get as accurate. So is listening to sometimes people talk, like when those drive through things like, what'd you say? Was that a large? Was that medium? Like so anyways, I think it's a great use of AI and for everyone that's like you're taking away a job. You're right. You're taking away a job from someone that has to listen and push a button. That person can now go spend their time getting the education skills required to do something bigger and better. And I think that's pretty cool.

And I also think the trade off is hopefully. Now these are mega corporations, so I don't want to speak lightly of this, but hopefully they can take some of the money not spent on one person with a headset pushing buttons all day and distribute some of that hourly wage around to the other employees.

Probably won't happen.

Probably will happen. But ideally we could do that.

My hope is that there's less people required to operate that, that fast food joint and that one of those people goes out and becomes a software engineer. Because software engineers are very, very, very expensive.

Yes.

And the only way to bring that cost down, more people getting in doing that work. And so instead of me having to pay someone 2 or $300,000 a year to be a software engineer, if there was less people pushing buttons and taking orders at Wendy's and some of them went and gotten got free code education and courses and became software engineers, the cost would come down. So I'm very excited. I really look forward to this. Then the question is like, well, some of these people aren't capable of becoming software eng. Well, that's a limiting belief. I think that some of these people, if they, if they were given the opportunity and they didn't have the ability to just get, you know, 10, 15 bucks an hour, hopefully they would actually like the education system, push in the direction of getting skills that are valuable because pushing a button is what a 2 year old can do. Yeah.

Do you think that software engineers and I could be completely mistaken on this because obviously there are college courses for doing this, but do you think that in 20, 30 or now years that it will be viewed like a trade school? What?

Software engineering with a majority of software engineers don't even go to school. Right.

But do you think there'd be like a pathway like, okay, let's, let's go back 100 years. You didn't go to carpentry school, you just went and started working in a lumber yard and like became a carpenter.

No, I think now there's a trade.

School where you can go to learn carpentry and get a degree.

Not really because so much now. Because if software, software is inherently mobile and software is inherently, you can do it anywhere, there's not a whole lot of reason to go to school for it. Fair. Like you are literally on. You're going to be trained to be on your computer all day long and just typing on your computer ones and zeros and not talking to anybody. Yeah. So you can be educated that way. It's not like sociology or communication or biology where you be in a lab. Like you're going to be typing on this computer. You need to understand what it says and what it does and how it interacts with all sorts of servers. Yeah, you can do that from here. And so like there are, there's genuinely like I could list off 10 different places on YouTube. There's some really good ones on YouTube where you, if you are willing to spend 3, 4, 5 weeks watching videos, you can learn php, you can learn Ruby on Rails, you can, you can learn Java. And so, and then it's just a matter of like, can you absorb it, can you do the reps, et cetera. And there's a difference between someone who knows how to do Java and someone who is a 10x engineer in Java and can just crush. And that's the person I have to pay 3, $400,000 a year for. And I just believe that more people push into that sphere, we will all become smarter, we will make more money and the cost of having to do that will come down. And then guess what? Yes. Eventually AI will replace them too. And hopefully we'll move on to something different. So interesting.

Let's get back to the Wendy's article.

Sorry, sorry.

You're good. I like where it went, but to the Wendy's article. So this is an article from about two months ago, is one of the Most up to date and thorough articles I could find, but digital menu boards and AI. So Wendy's is still moving ahead with some technical changes regarding pricing. The statement said that the chain is investing in digital menu boards for its locations in the US and will make changing prices up or down, presumably easier. So this article was in tandem the AI switch, but also they announced they might start doing surge pricing. It's like during lunch and dinner rushes, they'll change pricing, which we could also talk about.

That they decided not to.

Yes.

They actually said they didn't mean that. I think people took the digital menu board thing and like interpret it as like they're going to change prices every hour and.

Yeah, yeah. So that's what the first half of this article talks about. But I want to talk more on the AI side. Artificial intelligence is also on the menu. On the earnings call, Tanner, who's their CEO, said the company already has rolled out what they call Wendy's fresh air in some restaurant locations. He said the company is seeing ongoing improvements in speed and accuracy with regard to the air use. According to Food and Wine magazine, Wendy's will use AI to suggest menu changes on these digital boards due to external factors such as weather. Maybe it's cold out, so hype up the hot chili question mark.

Yeah.

Wendy's didn't elaborate on its use of AI. So they're keeping it pretty tight. Lip.

Oh, yeah.

But of course it's now getting out there that they're using it. People are recording in TikToks.

So remember like, like even like 20 years ago, like all the menus were like plastic and you'd have to change, like, give me a huge deal to change the price. A huge deal to change a menu item or add a menu item. Now it's like, it's okay. We had. It got cold. Let's bring the chili up a little higher. Let's push the frosties down. Bad. Yeah. You know, like, that's just smart. Yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah. I think that is really smart that you can highlight certain menu items or based around even like holidays, obviously, like there are holiday menus or special limited items. And then based on the weather, I think that's fantastic. It just makes sense.

Yeah. 100.

So that was. That's pretty much it. Yeah. The title of the article there is Wendy says no to surge pricing, but yes to AI. And it was kind of the key takeaways. So.

Oh yeah, they'll all adopt it. Like I said, restaurants will adopt this first. Then it'll move more towards hotels. The financial system has already done this because they have billions of dollars and so it'll just trickle its way down. And of course as usual the home service industry will be about 10 years behind. But you eventually do the same thing to us.

Do you think that so when you say hotels that you're just going to check in on a screen. There's no front desk attention.

No. When you call in you're like I want to make, I want to make a reservation. Like for when? Tonight. Great. What kind of room do you want? Like they just be like there's no reason to talk to a human is input and output equation. And so it only gets more difficult when it's like customer service related things and that will take longer. But like to where the, the, the, the extent of the technology is now I'd say within 12, 24 months. Like there's no reason why anyone should be answering a phone and taking contact information. Like think about what you're doing when you're doing a dinner reservation. Name, phone number, what time.

Yeah. How many. Yeah, that's it.

That's it. Like that, that like why is someone picking up that phone? They could be serving, they could be clean. They continue taking care of customers. So anyways.

Yeah. Do you feel that there will ever be kind of tying in the surge pricing conversation with AI that they would just integrate like restaurants. Like okay, now you have to pay like a premium price to hold the table or like a hotel room.

Oh yeah. And people freak out and there'll be people willing to do it.

Yeah.

Like people are weird. Like surge pricing is so horrible. Then great come the cheaper time.

Yeah.

It's like we are, we already have surge pricing on our roads. Like toll prices go up and down based upon the traffic.

And, and there's already pseudo surge pricing when restaurants do happy hour. Happy hour is never like during dinner rush.

Yeah.

It's like the hours before dinner rush or late night.

And they could, they could literally just raise their prices and be like during these hours. It's cheaper. Same thing as surge pricing.

Yeah.

Right. So but like literally there are most toll roads now if they're new, have a digital board and that the toll price changes based upon how much time you're saving on that road. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Because then you keep it exclusive to who is in. Like I don't want to be waiting in a drive thru for 20 minutes.

Yeah.

I would be willing to pay an extra five bucks. The other 40% in that line wouldn't be willing to. Fantastic. I Get through faster. I pay a premium. Let's go. Yeah, I made a video about this on home service Millionaire. Like surge pricing for home services?

Yeah, yeah, it was the quadrant graph.

Like there's like as you, as you get booked out further and further. If you're not going to extend capacity and you just be raising prices as like on a log, like a scale. Like, hey, if I'm three weeks booked out, I'm going to raise prices by $5 per hour. Great. If I am five weeks booked, I'm going to raise it by $15 and just keep doing that. Like that's a form of surge pricing. Yeah. Make more money, kill us.

I like it. I'm pro it. I mean the airlines do it too.

Oh, dude. Yeah.

So like we could just keep going down the list.

Amazon does it based upon what device you have. Have you ever tried versus PC?

Have you ever tried to fly during the holidays? That's literal surge pricing. They know more people are flying so they're just gonna jack up the price. Yeah, I get it.

It just has a bad connotation. If you call it some other word. Like flexible pricing, for example, it'd probably be like flexible. We like that. Surge. No, no, no, no, that's fair.

Surge feels very external. Yeah, we don't like externalities.

Yeah. Discount pricing, you could call it that. It's like when we're not busy, we bring our prices down, which implies that when it, when it's really busy, your prices are higher, which I love that.

I like when golf courses do that. Have you seen that?

Yeah. Weekends cost more.

Yeah, but golf courses do dynamic live, dynamic pricing. Search price, they call it dynamic pricing.

Dynamic.

So basically if it's like, like today, Washington today.

Yeah.

It's a nice rainy day. So there are some courses in the area. I know if I went to their website, I could get a tee time for cheaper. That's cool because they know it's like, okay, less people are gonna come here so we might as well drop the price. Like I think that's really smart for like the entertainment industry. If you consider golf part of the entertainment industry, I guess or golf, dude.

Like there's, it's a high class sport. So like on the weekends if you have all your tee times are booked out, there are people that would be willing to pay twice as much, 100%. So like.

Yeah, I thought about that too. Like I'd be willing to pay more to guarantee I don't have to play with anyone else.

Yeah.

Like just have the tea time to myself. Pay for people, but you could.

For four people. Could we just consider this a foursome?

Yeah, it's like, that's excessive. I'm not going to pay 4x a tea time pick.

Sorry. On the tea box, I'm gonna hit four balls because I favor four.

Yeah.

100.

100, dude. Alrighty. Well, let's switch it up. Completely different topic here. We're going in a very different direction. You're gonna have no idea what's coming at you because this next article comes from PCGamer.com okay. All right. Tattoo artist behind LeBron James.

Oh, I saw this.

Head loses lawsuit claiming his art, an NBA 2K was copyrighted. Jimmy Hayden tried to sue the developer after his tattoo work on the real LeBron James made it into the video game LeBron. So basically it goes on to say that in these video games, they're like hyper realistic now. Like his tattoos look like his real tattoos in real life. And the artist is claiming that it's copyright infringement because he came up with those designs and therefore he should be compensated for that design.

Oh.

Now, the case was just settled as of two days ago. It originally was approved, like it went to court and as of two days ago, they, the judge cited in favor of 2K sports. So the video game company that it is not copyright infringement. What are your thoughts on this?

I don't know. Like, when you put. This is the thing when I wonder what the judge actually said. But like, when you put the tattoo on LeBron James, I think it should be assumed. He's going to be on newspapers, he's going to be in video games, he's gonna be on websites. His likeness and image will be used over and over and over again. And I also wonder if potentially a tattoo could be interpreted as becoming the right of the wearer because it is part of their body.

Yes. But then it's like saying if I.

Give a heart transplant, like, hey, hey, that's my heart. Yeah, give it back. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah. I think it could go either way. I definitely think as a public figure. Right. This is, this is why it's an issue. Because he sees like, well, LeBron's getting endorsements from the video game company. I, I lean a little bit towards the tattoo artist. I do.

Because my tattoo made him what he is today.

No, not at all. In the sense of like, they directly copied his art, like, period. Did they or did they not directly copy his art?

No. How.

Why would you say no?

Because if I take a picture of you. Yeah. And you're wearing a brand on you. Do I owe royalties to that brand?

No.

Why? Because you own it.

Yes, but I'm.

What's the difference between a shirt.

That's a good point.

And tattoo?

Yeah, no, that's a good point. I see, I see what you're doing there. I just feel like it's different because it's a one time piece of art. Like it's like selling a fake painting.

I mean, can do a one off shirt. If I do a one off shirt, no one can take a picture of you without giving royalties to me.

Yeah. I'm not saying like he should be paid, but I. But I understand why he did it. I think I understand it because it's a one off piece.

What is the picture of?

Well, it's just.

I don't even know what that is.

Well, it's just. I don't know. I don't know what his tattoos are.

What does it say?

Is from the video say something, dude. I don't know. I don't. Two guys with no tattoos. I have no idea what his tattoos say. But he's like full sleeves on both arms.

Yeah. And I.

And I guess this guy has done pretty much all of his tattoos. So he's saying like those are individual works of art. I should be compensated. If you're directly copying them.

That's so weird. I wonder where LeBron stands on this. Has he commented?

I don't know. I didn't look into that. But I just thought it was an interesting article to actually like go to court over this.

I feel like. Okay. I feel like the ownership of the art was. Is resigned when it is put on someone's body permanently. That person then has the right to be able to sell their image and likeness to someone else. That is the NBA. The NBA then take that likeness and sells it to a company like 2K Sports.

Yep.

And that's kind of how like the cop I would imagine that went.

Yeah. Essentially that's what it's getting at. Let me see. So this is from one of the attorneys in the case. He said the decision is important decision for the entertainment industry. It's also an important decision for anyone who has ever gotten a tattoo and might have otherwise worried about their freedom to share their bodies with their tattoos. And it is a good development for tattoo arts as a contrary verdict could have destroyed.