Land vs. Rentals: The Honest Comparison Nobody in Real Estate Wants to Have

1.

I once dined on steak with a candle's soft glow, but the bill left my savings despairingly low. Now wisdom has taught me, so simple, so grand, Eat baloney, buy land. Oh, eat baloney, buy land. Trade the fork for the deed in your hand. Skip the filling, let the sandwiches stand. Your fortune will grow when you buy your own land.

Welcome everyone to Land Geek Nightcap. Good to see you, gentlemen. Uh, so marketing, marketing gave us tonight's topic, Land Versus Rentals: The Honest Comparison Nobody in Real Estate Wants to Have. We have talked about that a few times, so we're gonna do, uh, we have a different plan. We're gonna touch on that briefly, but then I think we're gonna segue into something, uh, kind of interesting. So, you know, Mark, Elon Musk recently has been talking about a future where, you know, AI and robotics are going to create so much abundance that money itself could eventually just become less relevant and jobs could become less relevant. So whether he's right or not, it raises kind of a fascinating question like, what's the world going to be like 10 years from now? And the world, I mean, it's changing quickly. So what should we do now to protect ourselves? What should we own? What should we invest in? And I think we kind of know the answer to that, but I think it'll be a fun conversation. So let's do some intros. Scott Bossman, uh, the Nightcap OG. I never call myself that, it's very awkward. Joined by, on the bottom of the screen but at the top of our list, the Godfather himself, Mark Podolsky, the Land Geek. How are you, Mark?

Dude, buddy, the Nightcap OG, Scott Bossman!

I'm great.

I know, I'm great. Uh, I'm, I'm excited for tonight's topic. I've got my Olipop, for— that supports digestive health. This is such terrible, terrible stuff to drink, yet I love the fact, like, it's like, it's like great marketing. So cheers to you, Olipop, and your prebiotic soda.

Yeah, whenever I hear that kind of stuff, I'm always like, how can this have no sugar and yet be cloyingly sweet?

All at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the day.

Yeah, I love it. It's like eating my Snickers bar protein bar. It's got 20 grams of protein and 300 grams of sugar. It's delicious. I feel better.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. In the upper right, uh, He's our favorite, isn't he?

I mean, I mean, Mike's not here. I mean, so we can— might as well just pick on him. He is our favorite.

I'm number 2 after Mike.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's John. John, 8 is enough. Handsome Rob Burnett. How are you, John? I'm great.

It's sunny. School has just started for 2 of my kids, which is crazy. So yeah, it's It's crazy. I can't believe that summer is almost over. That went crazy fast.

But it did go fast, didn't it? Yeah, we start school here, uh, next week.

Yeah. Scott, tell me if you agree with this assessment of John. I feel like he's now sort of transcended into like the Bradley Cooper of land investing, to the point you're like, I don't know how I feel about it. Like, how dare he be that talented?

Right.

And that good-looking, all in one package. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, okay, he's a great actor, now he's singing. It's like, that's kind of how like I feel about John now. It's like, what can't he not do?

I mean, he is like the land geek, uh, A Star Is Born, right?

He's the land geek A Star Is Born, and he, he can sing, he can play guitar, and he's crushing it in the land business, and he's doing AI. What can this guy not do?

I can't whistle with my fingers. That's my one little thing.

Oh yeah, it's, it's a plethora of talent on that.

And he's super dad, super husband, super dad.

Yeah, you can't say a bad thing about him, which is almost like why he's our favorite. But don't tell Mike.

Don't tell Mike. Don't tell Mike. Uh, good to see everybody in the chat. Our viewers are down a little bit. Our Facebook connections are not working, so I guess we live in the reruns.

Um, you just have an intimate group.

Yeah, that's fine. We got Michael Martinez is here. Michael, good to see you. Uh, I don't know who that is. Handle of— Handle of ETOH, Handle of Alcohol. That is clever. That is clever. Uh, and, uh, did you guys know, uh, John, you probably know what ETOH is, right?

I don't know what ETOH is.

Mark, I think it's alcohol, isn't it?

ETOH.

And who else? Kelly Lazan. Lazan.

Kelly Lazan. I saw Kelly Lazan yesterday on the flight school.

Oh, nice. Wait, you were on flight school?

Yeah, I'm jumping on like for like a minute to tell everybody. Like literally Kelly's like, he shamed all of us to come to the Dirt Ridge Summit. Oh, like Kelly, are you coming? Are you coming? It's our community. You gotta come. Yeah, exactly. But it's seeing everybody.

It is the best event ever, right?

It is a great event.

I mean, I came—

I remember last, last year I left feeling so invigorated and exhausted.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, yeah, it was great. Yeah, it's that, it's that one conversation that can change your whole business. And that one, that one, like, you know, relationship that can change your whole business, it's the unlock. But it's hard because you're like, oh, you know, hotels are expensive, flights are expensive. You know, it's easier to not do the thing, but then when you don't see what you're missing. So I'm making a video about called Second Order Thinking.

Well, I like that.

What's first order thinking?

First order thinking is the easiest answer. Like, oh, don't go. But second-order thinking is like, wait, if I don't go, what's, what's the consequence of that?

Are you gonna do something called third-order thinking after that?

Of course. And then I'm gonna do fourth-order thinking, and it's ready to peel the onion. And then we're gonna get into Scott Boston's 5 Whys.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah, I like it.

Yeah, Kelly is on, is going, booked her flight.

Michael Martinez is going. Dean Hanquist is going. Dean, it'll be good to see you and good to meet you in person.

For sure.

Amazing coaching grad. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you know, that's, that's— there is something philosophical about this event because it, it does feel expensive for a lot of folks right now. But think about how much it, you know, think, think of it as an investment and how much you learn and how much you grow. You know, people come out of that 3-day event You know, as John said, invigorated, exhausted because you're a little bit brain dead, but ready to take action. And, you know, very— it's just a very motivating event to see. We talked about this a few weeks ago, the, the compounding effects of this business. And we have people in the room at year 1, and we have people in the room at year 25, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's just such a, such an awesome event. So So I look forward to seeing you all there.

Yeah, I remember hiring my first coach. This is like in like very, very early on. And, uh, he was from Australia, Ben Bresington, and it was $5,000. This is like, you know, early 2000s. I did not have $5,000, and I certainly did not have $5,000 for a coach. And I said that to him, I'm like, Bro, I can't— I literally said this to him— I can't afford it. And he looks at me and he goes, given where you are now, you can't afford not to do it. And I'm like, all right. I figured out a way to get the money and I did it. And it was, it was, it was literally like I probably 50x'd that investment. It was, it was incredible.

Well, I remember a similar conversation with you, Mark, back when I started. Right? Like, I, I had done a couple deals on my own, but, uh, I needed help and community and assistance with, with trying to figure out how to scale this as a business. And, and I went into a year-long commitment with The Land Geek, and, uh, I didn't feel like I had enough money either, right? And we had a conversation on the phone, right? And, um, and you, you know, with your help and with my wife's nudging, because she She was all about, you know, getting us to take the leap. We took the leap, and it was the best decision I've ever made. I was nervous, but I think when you're, when you're nervous like that, I mean, there's discomfort. We always talk about that, right? But it, but it makes you show up when you've— when there's a little bit on the line, when there's a little skin in the game, it makes you show up and take action. So, and that's what I did. Um, and yeah, best decision I ever made.

There you go. Cheers.

Cheers. I concur.

He agrees.

All right, awesome. Well, should we talk about the, the, the main topic briefly?

Yeah, let's get into it.

Land versus rentals. Okay, so I'll give one reason. Um, so rentals have, uh, tenants, toilets, termites, headaches.

Oh, that's 3 reasons.

Seriously?

No, that's all the same. It's all in the same thing. It's the same.

Okay, so we're gonna go into the bucket of headaches.

Yeah, the bucket of headaches. Uh, land doesn't have headaches, so that's why we like land. So that's, that's what I'm gonna say.

Okay, JB, too simple?

I'll go with, uh, repeatability and scalability. So, um, when it comes to— if your play with rentals is finding an incredible opportunity And then turning that into a rental, well, that is hard. It's hard to find those opportunities. It doesn't scale very quickly, right? There's a lot of you involved in just the acquisitions process. And so for us, our whole thing is scalability. And so we, we deal with properties that are very similar to one another. And when you're dealing with that, when you're dealing with large rural subdivisions, you know, with 2,000, 3,000, 5-acre parcels, Well, all of a sudden you can— you have a highly repeatable process for finding these opportunities, and then due diligence is very consistent between all these properties. Marketing and selling is very consistent between all these properties. So you can delegate, you can automate, you can pull yourself out of those systems rather than having that be something that's heavily reliant on you.

So I love it. Well, in the, in the theme of ability, I'm gonna go with affordability. And now can I go ICT? Can I go simplicity? It's kind of off top. It's kind of off theme. So, you know, let's say it's— I mean, really, I mean, I know, like Landarm, you can start with $50. But let's just say like a typical deal, let's say $2,500 You know, purchase compared to— I don't know where you can buy a house that you would actually fix and flip, right? I mean, you could maybe— I don't know, maybe you could buy a crack house for $50 grand, but it's $50 grand and it's a crack house, and you're gonna literally either put yourself in jeopardy buying it or the crew to fix it up. buying it, and then you gotta sell it and be like, just ignore the crackheads, right? Um, so from affordability issue, even the cheapest, craziest house does not come close to an inexpensive piece of raw land. When you look at the numbers of it, the yields that we get compared to a yield on a house and the time and the risk and the private money and all the complexity. of buying a house to finding a renter, leasing that, vetting that renter, and then dealing with all the headaches. You got to save money for, you know, for all that CapEx that Scott was talking about, you know, the new roof and the new AC unit, and then the dishwasher goes out and all the headaches of it. This is simple. Buy an inexpensive piece of raw land in an inefficient market. You sell it, you make it cash flow like a rental home. And to John's point, you just make it a machine. And it's a repeatable system. It becomes this river of nickels, a passive income machine. No renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. Tell me what's better.

Right?

What's— I'll do it. What's better?

Yeah. No, you're right. And, you know, I like what you said about no risk. Right, or low— we'll say low risk, right? Like, I think it's risky nowadays to, to get into traditional, you know, rentals because, yeah, you know, you can't— you know, it's hard to trust tenants sometimes. And sometimes you have periods of vacancy, and sometimes you have squatters that aren't paying you. And, um, you know, I think, uh, there is an equity play with with traditional real estate investing. But, you know, a lot of, a lot of the folks that we talk to who, uh, rent out homes— they, they own homes and they rent them out— they're kind of stressed, right? They're stressed about receiving the next payment, and they're stressed about the next repair that's due, and they're stressed about managing the property. Whereas we're kind of in this kind of virtual inventory business, right? We collect these this inventory of land, it kind of just sits on a spreadsheet on my computer and I'm not really stressed about it, right? Because I'm just— I've bought these things at a discount, so they're just kind of sitting there waiting to be sold. And, um, it's, it's really not stressful.

Yeah, I've got a buddy in Chicago who's a landlord and we were talking about it. He's like, talk about stress. Like, it's going well for him and he's stressed she's going to leave. And then the unknown of like, what happens if a good tenant leaves? So, you lose either way. When you have a good tenant, you're afraid you're gonna lose them. And when you have a bad tenant, you're dealing with a bad tenant. Either way, it's stressful. It's lose-lose.

The other thing, like, so there— so, if you lose a tenant, you have a cash flow problem, right? But then also there's like another piece, which is what happens when the market turns, right? So with— when the market— it's way easier to go underwater on a house than it is with our mall, right? Like, if you're buying 25 to 35 cents on the dollar, the market has to go way down for you to really substantially be impacted to the point where you're going to be losing money on your land. Right? Whereas with a house, it's not nearly as hard for that to get you in a very tight spot.

Yeah. And then, you know, interest rates— I, I don't know how you lower interest rates when we're in an inflationary environment. So that's, that's going to impact the affordability of you as the investor getting a loan. And then you've got to raise your rates, and that's even hot. I mean, we have an affordability issue in this country. Housing is a—it's—it's rough. It is rough out there, and I don't know. I don't see it getting better in the next 12 to 24 months. I don't know about you guys.

Yeah, it's. It's an interesting environment right now. And, uh, but I mean, that's, that's really why I love our model, because, you know, we talk about all the time, Mark, there's this margin of safety when we make sure when we buy these properties, we're buying them at a deep discount compared to the market value, right? So we can't go wrong, really. Um, and then the, the really cool thing is that they sell this. So right now we're on course for having a really good year in my land business. I have a couple land businesses. We're on course for having a really good year in both businesses. John, I'm sure you could say the same in your business. Uh, we're just selling land consistently, and, uh, I think it's just because our buyer pool is so big and people love owning land and people can afford $100, $200, $300 a month. So yeah, cool. Well, did we cover that topic, or is there anything else that we need to talk about?

Let's ask the peanut gallery. Let's ask the other land geeks.

The hive mind?

Any— what?

I can use the word hive mind tonight because Mike's not here. He can't get all, uh— I don't know why that freaks him out so much.

Oh, Scott, I don't like when you say the hive mind. That's the worst. That was the worst Xeno impression. I'm not gonna try it.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. Uh, Uh, Brad Kelly's a comment: rentals equals, uh, landlord-tenant laws, terrible, especially here in Washington. Buy dirt.

Uh, is Brad Kelly coming to the summit, by the way?

I think— I thought maybe he said it. I don't know. Brad, are you coming? Um, handle of alcohol, the less jurisdictions the better. Uh, Ryan Mora's comment about, uh, about how Uh, tenant laws seem to change after COVID, so that's a tough thing. That's got to be a really tough position to be in.

Oh, I'll be back.

Okay, no problem. Um, so, but John, you own some rentals, so like, be honest with us. Now I think your model's a little different though because you, you got some Airbnbs, right? Or do you have some long-term rentals?

I've got some short-term rentals, so I, um, I enjoy them. So Valerie, uh, grew up in, uh, the hotel industry, so we enjoy doing them. They definitely have a lot more, uh, like I talked to a lady for 20 minutes today who had one question, which was, can I have another person join me at the unit?

Okay.

So it's a lot more, it's a lot more questions and interactions that you get from people. You know, I, so I, but I enjoy the hospitality aspect of it, which is, you know, one of the big reasons that I do it.

Wait, wait, wait though. Do you enjoy abandoned puppy puppies on your premises?

I don't enjoy abandoned puppies. That was the worst one we had. A guest leave a dog in the shower at one point. So that was a fun one to figure out.

No dogs allowed to begin with.

No dogs allowed. Yes.

Right. And then a puppy that you have to bring home to 6, to 6 children who probably want a puppy.

Yeah, but no puppy.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, I think John's one of those rare people that just likes a complicated big life.

Yeah, I'm sure he had a smile on his face the whole time.

Yeah, he's like, it's like, now let's have punching chairs, let's have several companies, and let's, you know, this one's good, this is a machine, let's do an Airbnb and be in the hospitality industry, why not? Yeah. And then she— it's great that you love it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been, it's been fun. It's, it's kind of a— it's been a wild life. It's crazy.

Good stuff, good stuff. Well, uh, as always, if you guys have questions, comments, throw them in the chat, please. Uh, and we're here to help, right? If you're new to this, if you just started this, uh, and you're maybe unsure of of what direction to go, we love helping on this, uh, show. So throw, throw a question out there, a nuts and bolts question. We'll see if we can answer. But, um, yeah, anything else about rentals before we, before we pivot?

I mean, let's give rentals its due, right? Like, it can't be all— let's, let's just say, like, there's one advantage to a rental over a piece of raw land. And you can depreciate it. I'll give them that. Yeah, that's it. That's all I'm gonna give them.

Well, I think you can strategically use the equity in the properties too to add more, right? Add more properties, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of like saying, um, you know I'm going on a diet, but I'm gonna go to Cheesecake Factory. And then, and then, you know, like, like more of more headaches. Great. I guess it depends what your goal is in life.

Right.

You know? Yeah. But yeah, no, I, but I know, I honestly though, I see your point though. You're right. Yeah, it is. It is a, for some people, a very good strategy.

Yeah, well, Mark, uh, you saved me from going that route. We were on the verge of buying a duplex, Aaron and I, and you just happened to come along just out of the blue, right? And, uh, I'm like, this sounds better.

Yeah, you know, but like, we're running a business. That's true. Scalable, systematic business that doesn't require us. It's very different than, you know, if you had 1 or 2 duplexes And maybe you're spending time on the weekend and, you know, it's manageable. But I mean, you know, to run 100 duplexes, like, to be in the business of that would be very, very difficult to scale. And you have to have lots of money, lots of investors. It's a whole different thing. And the risk is really, really high at that scale.

Agreed. I concur. Ooh, ooh, I do concur. Well, uh, Mike, you're missed tonight if you happen to be watching this in the rerun. Um, yeah, no shoutouts for Mike tonight. Darn it. Anyway, I love the guy. Uh, so let's, let's try for the last 30 minutes, let's have a little fun. All right, so So let's think about 10 years from now. This stresses Mark out, but you know, we're still going to talk about 10 years from now, right? So first of all, there's like, there's money. So money is kind of interesting, right? So like, money is a tool. We, we save it, we invest it, we exchange it. Um, but the dollar is kind of losing its value. The dollar is kind of almost worthless when you look at at it today versus what it was years and years ago. So, Mark, there's money and there's wealth. So when you think about building wealth, what do you think about? Like, how can we protect ourselves building wealth in the next 10 years? Well, I think it's really interesting.

I mean, if we're gonna put on our— like what you said— and put on our economist hat, right? Um, the current currencies, you know, the dollar Right is relative to other currencies still very strong. It is our greatest export, and you know, are we going to be the the you know the currency of reserve, right? I mean, I remember reading Yuval Noah Harari, and he said, you know, during the Gulf War, you know, they're they're you know. burning these things in Iraq that are priceless. They're saying death to America, but they're keeping the dollars. The dollar is very strong globally, at least the idea of the dollar, but to your point, it's losing its value every year as we're trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. We actually have a debt crisis We cannot print our way out of it. Ultimately, what we're going to see in the next 10 years is the dollar's value continues to go down. To quote Ray Dalio, cash is trash. You want to buy real assets. Gold, land, equities, those types of things are going to outperform the money and the safe money in your bank is no longer safe. And then you've got the digital currencies, which, you know, the smartest people I know love Bitcoin, and the smartest people I know think it's a scam. So I don't know where to go on that. I think you should have a little bit just in case Bitcoin goes to a million and actually becomes a viable, you know, global currency.

There's a, there's a lot of things you can see about it.

But ultimately, to your point, I think that if you're buying assets like land, you're trading dollars for land, you're in a much better position. And we've seen it. I've got land that we bought 5 years ago, and the value of that land has just skyrocketed. And I'll be talking to Tate, I'm like, why is this land sitting? He's like, why are you stressing? He's like, it's tripled from what we bought it. He's like, would you rather have it sitting in cash? I'm like, no. Okay, fine. This is, by the way, very expensive land. Our land does sell. We don't really sit on land for 5 years. I'm being extreme in this case, but yeah, I'd rather have land. I'd rather have assets than currency. It's not just— I don't want to just pick on the United States. It's every country, uh, in the world is sort of in this issue. Uh, you know, maybe not Argentina now. Like, they have a really interesting story, but still it's a very young country. Yeah.

No, I love that. And I think, you know, with our model too, I look at just a simple example. Like, if I, you know, um, if I had $100,000 in my bank account Like, would I want it— would I want to just— would I want to just let it sit there for the next 20 years, or would I want to buy $100,000 worth of land at a deep discount, right? And I think that's, that's where the power of land investing comes in, because we're buying these at a discount. So I'm trying not to park my money in the bank, right?

Yeah.

Um, and I think that's a smart play. when you're looking at, you know, money versus wealth, um, you know, in the next 10 years. Um, John, what are your thoughts? So, and I think there's kind of a mindset thing with this too, like, you know, because, because you used to be an employee working for an hourly wage, right, earning money to exchange for things. And then there, there's kind of a mindset shift here where you need to get in the mindset of an investor as far as acquiring assets. So did you feel anything a few years ago with that shift? And could you talk about that at all?

I think that like one big thing that happens is you're— when you are in a position where you're not trading time for dollars, right? I do remember one thing happening when I— and this was for me just the shift to entrepreneurship. in general, like the recognition that the work that I do has a direct impact on the amount of money that I make, right? It's like if I do the right things, then I will make money. If I don't do the right things, then I won't make the money, right? And there was like in that moment when I entered that sphere, it was invigorating on the one hand and empowering, but then also kind of scary too at the same time, right? But with that, when you put yourself in that position, you also have the ability to radically increase the amount of money that you are making for the effort that you're putting in. Mm-hmm. Because you're not just, you're not just putting in the labor and getting the dollars, you're actually building a machine that can create that profitability for you. And so you can, You know, you could be in a position where you're— I mean, Mark, it's probably like obscene for you, like given the— like you do, you were— you do what, 1 hour in your land business a week or something like that, right? So like if we were to calculate Mark's hourly rate for his land business, like at some point it'd be— it gets a little bit silly. Yeah, right. But It's, um, it's pretty crazy, um, what you can do. So.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's also interesting, like, and I just watched this show, uh, on YouTube TV called The Alpinist. Uh, it was a documentary about this guy, I think— what's his name? Uh, I don't wanna— I don't wanna mess it up. I just, uh, Looked it up. His name is, uh, his name is Marc-André Leclerc, Canadian climber. And he was the— like, like Alex Honnold, the guy who did free solo, was talking about this guy as the greatest climber. And he was doing things no one was doing, free soloing up these— like, and he didn't care about you know, anyone seeing it. He just wanted to do it. And the reason I'm talking about this guy is that for whatever reason, like this guy Alex Honnold, these climbers, for them to feel alive, they have to climb these huge mountains and be in like nature and the beauty and, and go to the edge. Where an entrepreneur is kind of similar, but we're not going to necessarily We're not going to die. We're going to get something out of all of the challenge, like we're going to get better at it. Even if you don't make money at the first thing, you don't die, but you learn a lot.

Yeah.

Then you go to the next entrepreneurial summit to climb, and you've got more skills and you're better at it. Again, you're probably not going to die. Doing it, but you'll get that invigorating feeling, and you'll still feel alive. I think if you're lucky enough to have that in you, where you want to go for it in life, entrepreneurship is like the best thing to do for so many reasons. But you're not going to die, right?

You know, yeah, I love that. That's the quote of the night.

Yeah, but you guys gotta watch this show. It's crazy.

Oh man, Alex Honnold. That guy's crazy. Did you see the Netflix, uh, documentary where he climbed the skyscraper in China?

Yeah, and you know he's gonna survive.

I, I was pacing the entire time. I was just walking back and forth. I'm still scared thinking about it.

I know, he's smiling. He has no Amitabh, he's no fear setter.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy craziness. Yeah, so, uh, come, come be land investors. Yeah, there's no dying.

Worst case, you're gonna feel really alive.

Yeah, you're gonna feel alive.

Exactly. Yeah, it's invigorating.

Oh man, that's crazy. I love that. That's a great story.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, so yeah, I think this is a, you know, you know, we, we talk about, um, assets and there's kind of this, uh, there's kind of this pattern with land investing, right? Like, you're like, you need, you need a little bit of cash on hand to, to buy land, but then we sell it and it creates cash flow, and then that allows us to buy more land, which creates more cash flow. So it's kind of this, this kind of flywheel, right, that, that takes place in the land business, which I think is really cool because you do it for long enough and then you do create freedom for yourself, uh, with your time and your money and your location, um, and that type of thing. And, you know, I think that's essentially what you've been teaching people, Mark, for years, right, is Just to, to make that dollar work for you in a way that creates freedom down the road rather than just letting it sit there.

Yeah, but do you think in 10 years there'll be so much abundance that the need for the traditional job, the need for traditional idea of money, is going to be replaced somehow by, by something else?

Possibly. So then, so then the question is like, what becomes— if things are more abundant, is there anything that's more scarce? And like, how do we, how do we grasp hold of that, right? And I think even though land is— it's a massive market. As we've heard a thousand times, they ain't making more of it, right? So it is, in a sense, a scarce resource, just like metals are. And honestly, Bitcoin is, right? Because there's a current— there's a limited supply, right? So do we invest in scarce resources right now?

Yeah, I mean, you know, a guy like John Burnett He's gonna buy real land and then he's gonna buy virtual land.

Is he going virtual land?

You know, the metaverse, which, who knows? I mean, that actually like hasn't taken off yet, but 10 years from now, you know. Yeah, I mean, maybe it's like, uh, Ready Player One and we all just put on our suits and we just go in our virtual worlds and then, you know, I don't know.

It's crazy to think about that, but it— we're kind of close to it. We're close to it. Yeah, it's crazy to think about.

So I don't know that I did a, uh, an April Fool's promo where I offered 5 acres on the moon.

I do remember this.

Yeah, I did not sell anything, so including the moon.

But there was a company selling plots on the moon. I don't think— I don't think it was a real— I mean, they were really taking real money for this stuff. Yeah. Um, I, I don't know if the guy's back in jail or what, but like—

But who owns the moon is the thing, right? Like, that's—

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. Does anybody in the chat own virtual land out there? That's, uh, we talked about that years ago on the podcast. Scott, yeah, because he thought he might buy some virtual land.

Yeah, remember that there's someone who bought like, you know, spent like real money on, on a virtual land in the metaverse, like millions of dollars. Yeah. Wow. I think they're looking back and being like, you know, I don't know if I— maybe not bought that necessarily. Maybe I should have waited. Uh, what was the big thing going on? Like people were spending like millions of dollars on a JPEG. What are those called? Oh yeah, the—

oh yeah, what happened to those things? Yeah, the, uh, what are they called?

Like, they're like, uh, yeah, I can't remember.

I can't remember either.

But it was a thing, and you put it in like your wallet, and it had a market.

Yeah, it was like, this is the real one.

This is the real one. This is like, yeah, this is NFT. NFTs. Yeah, I think the NFT market, no one talks about that anymore. That was the thing.

Yeah, you're right. That was, that was a quick fad, wasn't it?

That was the thing. Yeah. So, you know, there's, there's always going to be a thing. And I think ultimately, as much as everything's going to change, I think what's not going to change is people will always want a real asset. And they'll always want a good deal. How that looks is going to be, you know, we don't know. And I also think that people always want a purpose. Why am I waking up? I want to do something. I want to, I want to serve in some way. And if it's not in a traditional job sense, maybe it's creating value in some other way. And I don't know what that would look like if, if, you know, the intelligence gets so good that we're just the, you know, kind of like our pets, right?

Right.

It's like, oh, they're adorable, right? But we're just so much more intelligent. Like, does the AI become this new species that just looks at us like they're pets? Like, oh, they're adorable, we'll pour into you and, you know, we'll make your life great. Like, I look at, like, you know, uh, our dog And like, God, I'd love to trade places with this dog, right? What a life. It's great. But I don't think I would necessarily. Yeah.

I like the idea of having like the whole like Terminator plotline, but instead of like nuclear apocalypse, everyone just becomes a pet.

Yeah. Like, you know, like the humanoid just takes care of you, right? Just like pours into you. It cooks for you. It cleans for you. You know, you know, all the drudgery of life is gone. Like the dog, right? We feed the dog, we take the dog out, it's happy. Like, love the dog. Um, but I don't know.

But there's always a— there's always gonna be like this. We aren't gonna be like digital beings, right? There's gonna always be this physical component to us. Like, we need space and we need land and we need like land for stuff. And, uh, I don't know, it's kind of interesting, right? We need infrastructure, we need land for data centers, we need land for like solar energy. I don't know.

I, I listened to this podcaster and he was a really smart guy and he's like, you know, pump the brakes on, on, you know, all this. He's like, this is no more transformative than the internet was or the Industrial Revolution. Like, like these things come and like everyone freaks out It's going to be the end of everything. And yeah, there's going to be some pain, just like there was in the internet. But then there's going to create more opportunities. So I don't think it's going to be necessary. I mean, I could be wrong. I don't think it's gonna be like— I think the people who benefit the most from it are the people who are hyping up the most, right? So if I own xAI and I own Anthropic and I own OpenAI, I'm gonna just say, look, it's gonna change everything and we better be prepared, right? Where day to day, how much is it changing your life? It's like, it's better, it's helping.

Right.

But it's not, I mean, Have you fired your whole team? Right? No.

I don't know.

Yeah. I also think like with the AI stuff too, like, like there's a couple of distinct ways to look at AI. And one is like, you can imagine the person like with their feet up on their Tesla dashboard, barreling down the highway, right, with autopilot on. Right? And so where AI is effectively acting as a shortcut and it's saving them time where they don't have to do a specific task. But if you were to— the other way to think about it is like, how can I actually use AI to do more things, right? And like, and one question is like, I think if you ask a lot of people who are really into AI, how have you made money with AI? That number, the number of people who could answer that positively, it's much smaller, right? A lot of times it's like little shortcuts here and there. The question is, how can I actually use this to augment what I'm doing? You know?

Yeah, I, I'm out of my alley pop almost, but I concur.

Oh, good. It's the 3rd concur of the evening.

Yeah.

Rick Colcock.

Still has his CryptoKitties. That's hilarious.

Oh, that is hilarious. And look at this, we get a shout out to Scott, John, and Mark for doing this every Tuesday, and Mike too when he's here.

Yeah, next week it's gonna be just Mike. All of us are off.

That honestly, that would be a great show. I think Mike could handle it. Actually, if any one of the 4 of us could do it, it would be Mike. Oh yeah. Yeah, he would. Yeah, don't threaten him with it. You're like, fine.

For sure, you'd definitely do that. Uh, no, that's awesome. Cool. Well, you know, I think, uh, common themes in the, in the show, uh, let's see, you know, let's get started in some land investing, right? Invest your dollar wisely, invest it in an appreciating asset, and Buy, buy, buy land at a discount and you can't go wrong, I don't think.

So yeah, you guys ever read, uh, I think, is it Peter Diamandis? I don't, I don't know if that's his first name. I don't know. He's friends with Elon Musk. He interviews him all the time, but he's really big into abundance and how technology is going to just make all our lives better. We're going to live longer. There's just going to be abundant food and resources. He's really, really positive about the future. And so if you're ever, you know, feeling down, pick up this guy's stuff. He's like, don't worry, it's gonna be amazing in the future.

How do you spell his name, Mark? Do you know?

Uh, D-I-A-M-A-N-D-I-S.

Diamandis. I follow him on, uh, Peter. Peter. Peter Diamandis.

There he is. Yeah, nice.

He's got a bunch of books. He does the X Prize. It's a big deal. Awesome.

Check that guy out. Very good. Any other, uh, comments about 10 years from now? Thoughts where we're gonna be? Mark, are we gonna have jobs? Are we just gonna like be fed to by the government, or what's, what's going on there?

I mean, I think there's gonna be jobs. I just think there's not gonna be drudgery. I think bad stuff is going to go away. The jobs that are monotonous, that a bot can do better than a human, those are going to go away. I still think human creativity, these types of things are going to be really valuable. Just an authentic connection with another human being is going to be super valuable. Going to the Dirt Rich Summit, where you cannot fake, right? Like I was calling a bunch of clients on Friday and personally invited them to the summit. Some people really pick up like, "I don't believe it's you." I don't know. I'm like, "No, it's really me." Like it's not AI Mark. And like one guy quizzed me. He's like, "Where do you live? And what's your favorite city north of you?" And I answered it. He's like, "Okay." That's awesome. Yeah, but if you're in the room together, there's no faking it, right?

That is awesome. I love that.

So I— but I've got a buddy, Ori, who started this startup called Trusona, and AstraZeneca is like— just got a big contract because what happens is they can deepfake the CEO. And the CEO is deepfaked. He's walking through an airport, and he's screaming at support, I'm going to a big meeting, I'm getting on a plane, reset my password. And they're like, I don't want to get fired, and they do it. And so with Trusona, it's like, okay, show us your ID. And just by like the barcode and the ID, they know if it's really you or not.

Right.

And I think that's the future we're going into. Where digitally we're not going to know who is who unless they show that's really them.

Yeah, well, it needs to be like some implant under the skin. That's where— that's probably where we're going, right? Are you serious?

I don't think I'm getting the implant. You can get the implant.

I'm not getting the implant, man. I'm not getting the barcode on my wrist. list either.

Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, no. But I mean, I don't know, what if, uh, you know, we got, we got years left to live here. What if 50 years from now, you know, we don't need IDs? You know, we don't. Maybe it's just all, um, it's all tattoos. Yeah, QR code tat. I mean, it could be. I don't know. It's crazy, right?

I don't know if it would be legible once you're like '83. At that point, I mean, we're all—

we're already doing like pupil and iris like identification stuff, which is crazy.

Yeah. Do you think it could be like 2 different types of like societies where you have like one who just refuses to adopt the technology and it's like we're driving— they're like driving their own cars on these old roads and they kind of do all this stuff and they don't have computers and it's like, you know, Very, uh, you know, Mad Max-ish. And then you got the others who are like, you know, super futuristic. Minority Report. Minority Report. They got jetpacks and like, you know, they might go, go, you know, visit the island and see how the natives are living. I'm like, wow, they're, they're cooking their own food over there. It looks really nice, right? Wow, they kind of talk to each other. It's really weird. It's very peaceful. So I don't know.

Rick has a good comment. He thinks we're gonna go back to live entertainment where we do comedy shows. Live music is gonna be huge in the future. I, I agree. I mean, there's gonna always be a, a hunger for that stuff for sure.

Hungry Like the Wolf.

Hungry Like a Wolf. Duran Duran, 1980. 1980, no, it's a little too early. I'm gonna say '82, but it was definitely Duran Duran.

I don't know about the year.

Yeah, Hungry Like a Wolf. Let's see.

I like the way I teed that up for him. That was a nice little lob.

That was a lob, yes. Oh man. Well, this was fun, fellas. I'm excited for the summit. I get to see you guys in like 6 weeks. 1982! Wow, called it. Um, I can see you guys in like 6 weeks.

I'm, I'm so excited. So wait, we got to talk about the challenge. Um, I talked to Tate, he's in. Tariq wants to be in on 2. Oh, so maybe, maybe 3 on 3.

Well, I don't think we disclosed this challenge to the community.

Oh, I think we, you know, come to the summit and we're going to talk to you guys about the challenge.

Okay, so we're gonna have teams, we're gonna have 3 teams.

Maybe 2 teams, 3-on-3.

Oh, 3.

Yeah, yeah, we still get— we still gotta have a few meetings about how we're gonna do it.

Oh yeah, like, wait, Tate's gonna do this?

Tate's on my team. Oh, I think Therese is gonna be on my team. Oh yeah, no, you, Mike, and John against us 3.

Against you 3? Okay, yeah, okay.

And we'll do— no, but we, we're all starting constrained.

We'll do like a month-to-month scorecard.

Yeah, and I'm using John's AI too. That's not fair.

All right, I like this idea. This could be fun.

This would be really fun.

All right, for those of you who are wondering what we're talking about, you have to come to the Dirt Rich Summit. That's where we're revealing all the details. The 3 versus 3, you don't know what it is. It's just 3 versus 3.

It's air hockey on three. Yeah, air hockey on three people on each side.

Oh man! Well, thank you guys. This was a fun discussion. Thank you guys. And we will see you a week from now. Hopefully all four of us will be here. Yeah, or just Mike.

Yeah, or just Mike. Just Mike. Yeah, yeah, playing guitar.

Solo.

All right, good night everybody. Thank you. Night. Talk to you later. Peace.