Crime Falls, HBO Returns, Sun Heals, Meta Spends, Tariffs Hit Hard

Today on Communiverse, crime is crashing, but your TV news hasn't noticed. We've got the stats they won't show you. America may be on track for the lowest murder rate in modern history. Then HBO Max is back. Why Warner Brothers is undoing the brand no one wanted and what it says about streaming's quality crisis. The New York Times reports sunshine might actually be good for you. Yes, even with or without spf. Find out how moderate sun exposure could boost your blood pressure, immune system and mood. Meta just offered over $200 million to poach Apple's top AI engineer. It's not a typo. Yes, $200 million. And it's not the only monster deal they made this week. And finally, meet the sourdough startup nearly wrecked by Trump's tariffs. One small business, one shipping container and one trade policy that might kill it all. So hello and welcome. This is the Communiverse. I'm TJ Walker. I'm your host. This show is about business, technology and culture. We look at the news and dissect it, decode it through the lens of communication skills, all in order to boost your personal development and your personal success. So very happy you're here today with us. My name is TJ Walker. I'm the host and I bring to you decades of experience of actually working with newsmakers as their media trainer, as their personal development coach. I've worked with Wall street wizards, billionaire fund managers, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, as well as presidents of countries and prime ministers, coaching them how to get ready to make the news. Now we're going to look at it from the other end. What's coming out of the newsmaker's mouth and really trying to figure out together what is going on. So let's take a look at the first story here about crime. The crime drop you won't hear about on cable news or your local broadcast affiliate. For 30 months, violent crime in America has been falling quickly, yet cable news still sells. Fear homicides and shootings spiked in 2020 but are now nearing historic lows. Jeff Asher is a top crime analyst. He says 2025 could be the lowest murder rate on record. The best real time data comes from a network of 377 major jurisdictions representing a third third of the US population. They show a clear downward trend Even if the FBI's official stats are still lagging a year behind. But we don't really know why crime is falling. Researchers cite better policing post pandemic stabilization and fewer disruptions. But the evidence is Complete. I mean there, it's incomplete. There are theories like, well, because there's video cameras everywhere and cell phones everywhere, criminals are afraid they can't get away with it. There's all sorts of theories. Regardless, the facts are clear. America is safer today than it was three years ago. So why isn't that the headline? We're going to delve into this a little more deeply again. Homicides down 30 months in a row, lowest crime rate perhaps ever. And yet the media is still focusing on these fear driven narratives. A part of it is the way we as human beings are programmed. We are biologically programmed and evolutionary programmed to look for risk. It's a survival mechanism. It's what helps the species survive. And when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. In prehistoric times and caveman days and when you're in the savannah in someplace plains and there's saber tooth tigers running around, you hear a rustling of the leaves. It makes sense to fear the words, oh, let me escape to a cave, let me hide up somewhere in a tree so I don't get eaten. It makes perfect sense. But in the modern world, when we are all bombarded with news constantly, it can drive you to a state of madness. If nothing else, it can completely distort your view of reality. So here's the fascinating thing I find. You know, for 30 years actual violent crime in America has trended downward. Yes, there's an occasional blip up in 2020, but the general trend line is way down. And that's good news. That's good news for human beings. And yet individuals perceptions. I'm speaking from the United States perspective, but it may be true in your country too. If you're elsewhere. The perspective is every year that crime actually goes down. The perception of crime in the public's mind is that it goes up. I encounter this almost daily with fellow parents who think, oh, in my day kids could go run around and go to the store by themselves, but today you can't. Well, no, actually it should be the opposite. Thirty years ago was actually a lot more dangerous for a kid to go to the store alone. Kidnappings and violent front crime is way down again. Why is that? We as human beings all are risk assessors. We all like to think we are uniquely skilled at it. And all the evidence says we're not. Now everyone has bias. I have a bias. I get nervous at the idea of jumping out of an airplane, parachuting. And yet when I look at the actual statistics, you're much more likely to get injured in a car ride to the grocery store than you are jumping out of an airplane and going parachuting. And yet emotionally it feels scary to me when I'm on an airplane and all of a sudden there's turbulence. I am a little bit nervous. Where I should be nervous is the drive to the airport. So I'm putting this out there, not holier than thou, but to realize all of us are guilty of having biases that completely distort our ability to receive accurate communication about the world. Part of the premise of this show communiverse is that the more you and I can accurately perceive the world, the more we can receive communication in not a completely unbiased way. There's no such thing as null bias. But the more we can receive information where it's less distorted, the better off we are so that we can act rationally. And it's important for you to know that. And I see Barb has joined us. Great. And Matthew has joined us. I believe part of it is to avoid highlighting that the particular administration has to do with a trend. I'm not sure I get your. Oh, I think what you're saying is current people in political power don't want to be perceived as giving anybody credit of another administration. You're right. So in this particular case, the previous administration was Joe Biden and it's not politically correct among some circles to give any credit to Biden. So I do get your point. Matthew, thanks for watching. Barb, thanks for watching. And I'm assuming it means I remember to turn my mic on this time around. So I do appreciate it. And I know, I'm guessing that some of you might not like the backdrop perimeter. I would love your opinion. We're going to experiment probably tomorrow with something similar, but going at a much slower pace to be less distracting. But we're trying to make the show look more interesting, look a little more polished than a lot of people who seem to just hit on and they don't pay attention to anything in their backdrop. But again, Matthew, thank you for your feedback. Barb, as always, much appreciated. So here's what I want you to really think about and take away from this is when you hear news about crime, ask yourself, am I hearing this a because it has an impact on my life and it's a meaningful insight into way the world is going. Or is it just a cheap, easy way to manipulate me to get me hooked and to get me angry and to get me to watch the news or click something? Now, of course I think there should be sympathy anytime we see a human being, injured, killed, drowned, as in the case of the news this past week. But it should not distort your perception of the reality. I come across people all the time, and Matthew, you may be able to relate to this, who live in small towns in America, rural states who are convinced it's too dangerous to go to New York City because it's a rampant place of crime where every single person who goes on the subway is pushed to their death. The reality is, murder rate in New York City is lower than it's been in 60 years, and it's basically 50% lower than in a lot of rural areas and small towns in America and places where the politicians are always talking about tough on crime. That's right. Crime is lower in New York City on a per capita basis than most big cities and most small towns in America, but doesn't feel that way. Well, why is that? Because New York City happens to be the media capital of the United States and of the country. So when one person is pushed off a subway, chances are 50 people around work for big media companies. It becomes big news. But when someone in a small town accidentally shoots their neighbor, or on purpose shoots their neighbor, no one else in the world ever hears about it. So it distorts our perceptions of reality. And when you see these dramatic images of someone being pushed off a subway or someone being brutalized or a famous actor like Steve Buscemi getting punched in the face, it's so much more memorable than the whole the hard, cold calculation of numbers of tens of thousands of people who are murdered in a particular year, or the tens of thousands of people, sometimes 50,000 people a year, who die in car crashes around the United States and worldwide, we're still at a place where more than 1.2 million people a year die in cars. Now, if most of us, and I'm as guilty as anyone some of the time, if we really were concerned about risks to our own life, our loved ones, our family, we wouldn't worry about going to New York City. We wouldn't worry about getting an airplane. We certainly wouldn't worry about eating seed oil. Our biggest worry in life, frankly, would be getting in a car, going to the grocery store, or going anywhere. Because statistically speaking, that's where you're much more likely to get seriously injured. That's where you're more likely to be killed. Now, of course, we could do things to mitigate the risk. Put on seat belts, not drive drunk, not be out late at night when there are a lot of other drunk people driving, there's all sorts. Be a defensive driver. This is the mindset I want you to have. And I also want you to be highly skeptical. We saw a huge, huge push about eight months ago coming from certain segments of the national media pushing this narrative that crime was out of control, especially in big cities that were controlled by members of a particular party. That helped a political narrative that helped one political party galvanize support, but it wasn't necessarily based on anything true. So I want you to to base your life on truths. As you find out now, no one has a monopoly on truth. I don't have a monopoly on truth. But what I try to do here on the community is distill things, take away the shadings, take away the spin, and try to come up with the clearest message for you, what's really being communicated so that you can actually benefit from it and learn from it. So let's go to the next story. HBO Max is back. Prestige over platform bloat. That is our topic here. Warner Brothers Discovery has officially ditched the Max brand. So it was hbo, then it was Max, then it was HBO Max. Just two years after dropping HBO and a failed bid to compete with Netflix, Max was this larger brand that had all sorts of content that was not related to hbo. Now, the move acknowledges that quality content, not content volume, is what subscribers want. CEO Casey Boyes joked at the company's May upfront, good news. I still have the old stationary. HBO remains synonymous with prestige hits like the White Lotus and Succession. While the generic Max brand flopped despite including Discovery reality shows, most subscribers don't need to redown the app, just watch the blue Max logo to or watch it change to black HBO Max. So what's really going on here? And I don't mean to pick on hbo. I do pay for hbo. I subscribe to. I'm not an investor in them. They do have a lot of good shows. I absolutely love Succession. I did watch White Lotus, and some of my favorite shows of all time are on hbo, like Larry David's Curb youb Enthusiasm. But I think the real lesson here for you, for me, for companies, for anyone, whether you have a small company or a large company, is that we live in a world where big corporate brands just don't mean as much anymore. People watch or listen to Joe Rogan. They're not listening to Spotify necessarily. People are seeking out individuals, people like the Tim Dillon Podcast. They don't care what podcast platform they're on, whether it's YouTube or anything else, they think he is funny. So we are living in an age when I think it's harder for people to even care about big brands, especially in the world of media. People like specific shows. They like specific content creators. Now, Netflix has learned this and brought that lesson home. They go out and they cherry pick the absolute best producers of TV shows like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan, the guy who's done so many and so many other shows. They pick the best producers. They take Adam Sandler because people love watching Adam Sandler even though he's not high brown. They say, here, create shows you want with your name on it. It's worked well for Netflix. HBO has not done that as much as they have narrowed their focus of time. They don't put out nearly as much original content as Netflix, but they are a huge brand. Ultimately, I don't think it matters. HBO max. HBO max. Now, hbo, the focus has got to be on specific creators. I'll watch anything with Larry David in it. That's me. You know, my wife and daughter say, oh, you just like him because he's a grumpy old man and he's bald. But be that as it may, I like particular creators these days. If I like a comedian, I don't care if it's an HBO special or a Netflix special or an Amazon prime special. Lately, I find myself more and more watching comedy specials on YouTube. I just watched the Jim Norton comedy special on YouTube. Now, he's someone in the past who had HBO specials and Netflix specials. I don't know if he didn't get the deal with them. I don't really care. I saw he had a new comedy special. It was on YouTube, and the experience was exactly the same. What do you think? Let's check in with the comments. And I do want to thank people for paying attention. Matthew writes in says, indeed, I was just discussing the reality of hype of immigrants being painted as a danger to Americans with someone who really believed the hype that all illegals were dangerous with the data, and this is related to the previous story about crime. What? The data tells another story completely. It's wild that spin is so effective in changing perception. So, Matthew, do appreciate your comments. And yes, you always have to ask yourself, and this can be across the political spectrum, although it's disproportionately on one side these days. When you see a story about crime, you got to ask yourself, whose political interest is this serving? If this were true, and if it's not true, whose political interest is getting unfairly damaged with respect to the issue of immigrants, illegal immigrants, aliens, whatever terminology you're most comfortable with, there is this story that they this myth that they disproportionately commit crime and all the facts show that native born U.S. citizens are much more likely to commit crime, much more likely to commit violent crime than migrants. But that doesn't get talked about as much because it tends not to help one particular party as much. So Matthew, thank you so much for sharing your insights there. And Matthew, Barb, others, if you do want to share your thoughts on if you even care about hbo, hbo, Max, Max, or just hbo? Does this even matter anymore? Because what we are seeing in so many different strands is that individual creators, whether they are journalists, whether they work in the fantasy world, the non reality based world, because they are fictional content creators, feature content creators, they are realizing that they don't need a big brand behind them. We talked about this earlier in the week where Piers Morgan left a lucrative gig at a major TV news network in England to just have his own YouTube channel and seems to be thriving. He's got a huge audience. According to him, he has a lot more views with his own independent channel than he did with a big TV network. And the long run, he feels like he can make a lot more money. We're seeing this in the United States again and again and again. Former Fox News Channel host and former ABC News commentator talk show host Megyn Kelly has done extraordinarily well for herself just on her own YouTube channel, her own podcast. She reaches millions daily. She makes millions of dollars, certainly a lot more than 99.9% of journalists and talk show hosts who work for big networks. She's doing it independently because she built her own brand. Now, she's not my favorite, but a lot of people like Megan Kelly, they seek her out on YouTube, on podcasts. They are not looking for an overall brand to tell them what's good, what isn't good. They're not looking for a brand to serve as a curator. And that's really what is so different in the modern world. It used to be certainly when I was a kid growing up, you had three TV networks and a movie theater. And your your choice, any given night is one of those three things. Or go down to the local movie theater and there was a handful of movies curated by the powers, the big shots in Hollywood. So you didn't have a lot of choice. You had to pretty much take what was given to you. Now the power has shifted from these big brands to the consumers. So if consumers want to to Give an example of someone I think is contemptible. If consumers want to listen to or watch Andrew Tate, the well known misogynist and criminal, they can do that. If people want to listen to or watch Steve Bannon. Not my cup of tea. But you can do so without the stamp of approval from anyone at HBO or NBC or CNN or anyplace else. That's what's exciting and interesting and scary and good about the modern world. Which is why I think ultimately, you know, HBO can change all sorts of names. It's not really going to help. What helps them is when they have a show people like and like. Lately, I've had no reason to go to HBO because the show I like, Hacks, finished for the year. The show I like, Curb youb Enthusiasm in Theory, gone for Good. The show succession gone. So there's no real reason for me to go. YouTube gives me a reason to go every single day, several times a day. Why I like the show Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. So I'm gonna go every single day. And I think ultimately HBO has got to figure out a way of creating more content. Now, the beauty of the YouTube model and the podcast model is those companies don't have to pay for content. It's user generated and then they split the revenue so they've reduced their risk. The problem for HBO and Netflix and Amazon is there's this huge upfront risk of, okay, we think people like this movie, we think people will like this series. And sometimes they give this giant paycheck of 50, $100 million to a producer and it turns out nobody watches it. It was a flop. YouTube doesn't ever worry about a video flopping because they know every single day most videos will never get more than about three views on YouTube. Doesn't matter to YouTube because there's millions of minutes of new content put on every single day on YouTube and any social media format. So it completely takes out all the risk for the platform. And that, I think is the real problem for the HBOs of the world, not necessarily the problem of the brand name. Okay, our next story, a little more upbeat, I think, and kind of fun. And that is I'm having a few technical problems here. Okay? I can't. I can't show it to you. Ah. So we're doing a few new technical things. This is a, essentially a pilot here. We're in a testing phase for this show Communiverse. What we're all about is figuring out how to filter through the news of the day, really analyze the messages, the communication lessons, and then figure out how you can use that to help your own career, how to benefit your personal life, your professional life. That's what we're trying to do here on this show. So I'm doing some experimentation. The show is going to really be launching for real September 2, 2025. So we are working through the kinks here, trying to get things smoothed out. We'll be adding various aspects of production to it. So here we are in story three, Sunshine's comeback. This is according to the New York Times. Sun can boost your health and mood. The New York Times is reporting a quiet revolution in medical advice. Moderate sun exposure may actually be good for you. In a July 8 report, Dr. Lucy McBride says the old SPF every minute rule is outdated. New studies show sunlight helps lower blood pressure, regulate immune response and increase serotonin for improved mood. Dr. Richard Weller of the University of Edinburgh or Edinburgh explains that UV light triggers the release of nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels. And Dr. Elizabeth Koh of UCLA cites its positive effects on eczema, psoriasis and even multiple sclerosis. A major 2014 Swedish study found that women who avoided sun had double the mortality rate of sun seekers, despite slightly higher melanoma rates. So the other thing they're finding out, vitamin D pills just don't match the real sun. People say, well, you know, I live in London. There's no sun here. I'll just take vitamin D. Maybe it's better than nothing, but it's no match for the real sun. Now, let me be clear here. Sunscreen is still important. It is still needed. I'm not suggesting you say, well, you know, TJ said, I don't need any sunscreen anymore. That's not what I'm saying. So let's be very clear about that. But we live in a modern culture where I've seen so many people, especially parents, act like if their kid goes out in the sun for two seconds, from the home to the car, it's like they've walked through the Everglades where alligators could eat them at any minute, and they've basically taken their light in their hands. And we live in a world where increasingly the young and the old are spending so much time inside hunched over a cell phone, no exercise, no fresh air, no sun. Okay, yeah, maybe you don't get skin cancer, but you're so inactive it's much easier to become overweight, obese, have diabetes, stroke, hypertension and so many other health ailments. And you're much more likely to be depressed, suffer depression if you're not out and about in the sunshine. So again, it's not that sunburn is suddenly good for you. That's not the message here. The message is you do need as a human being to get out and get out in the sun and to enjoy outdoors. One of the best things I ever did about 10 years ago is I decided I'm going to go for a walk every day in the sunshine without this. And you may be saying, well, that's T.J. that's crazy. How could you do that? I would rather die than be outside without my phone. Guess what? It was one of the best returns on investment I ever could have made with my time. That's where I get my best ideas for online communication skills courses. That's where I get my best ideas for topics, for shows, for new online personal development courses. It allows me to think, reflect. And there's something about being outside, seeing nature, having no roof over your head that is good for your mental attitude. It's very hard to feel sorry for yourself and get depressed walking outside on a beautiful morning when it's not too hot yet and it's not too cold. Look, I'm not saying that will cure all mental illness. I'm not suggesting that in any way. What I am suggesting, though, is that as a culture, especially here in the United States, the second someone says, oh, I'm feeling a little down, the first reaction is, well, here's a pill, here's another pill. Go sit inside once a week and see this shrink again. There may be times that that's appropriate, but there's also a lot of evidence that simply physical exercise outside will do more to decrease depression than Prozac and other pills. And yet nobody makes money prescribing them. If I'm your shrink, and I'm not a shrink, if I just say, hey, you don't need to come back to me first. I want you to go for a walk every day for the next month, get some fresh air, get exercise, get a little sunlight, then come back. That'd be a bad business model. That's not what doctors say. They want you come. I'm not saying all doctors have evil intentions or they don't want to help you, but everyone has a perspective, and everyone has a business model. Psychologists, psychiatrists, others. Their business model is you come back once a week or you come back to get that prescription refilled. And that's how the medical establishment and the psychology establishment can make money. And I'm here to tell you there's a lot of evidence that you'll simply be happier by getting outside and getting fresh air, getting some sunshine. Now, I mentioned to you I started walking every day. Thankfully, I wasn't suffering any depression, but if I had, I think it would have helped. Now, I am careful, too, if I'm going to be outside for an hour, especially now that I live in Florida with Florida sun. I am careful to put sunscreen on every day. I'm careful to have a hat on because, as you may have noticed, things are not quite as thick on top as some people with beautiful heads of hair. So I got to be especially careful about skin cancer on the top of my head. We all have particular strengths and weaknesses, but what I want to challenge you to do is to get it again relates to other issues we talked about today with crime. Get an accurate sense of relative risk. It's never enough to say, that's risky, I shouldn't do it. It always has to be. Compared to what? Now, that's my problem with the critics of autonomous cars. Oh, I heard one of the Teslas crashed. Well, yeah, it did, but you're hearing about it because it's so rare. 1.2 million people a year die around the world in car crashes. You don't hear about any of them. So, yes, it's not that you couldn't get skin cancer and I'm a big fan of yearly checks with a dermatologist for skin cancer. It's that going outside in fresh air, getting some sunshine, at least for 15 minutes a day, is, even with the risk of that is less risky than staying inside, never getting sunshine. Yeah, maybe you don't get skin cancer, but if you're depressed, sedentary obesity leads to diabetes and they're chopping off limbs of yours. Now, that's no better. You're not going to live a longer life. You're certainly not going to live a happier, more fulfilled life. And that's what I hope for you. I'm trying to create a fulfilled, happy, healthy life for you. And it can't happen if we receive communication in a way that is distorted through filters where the risk assessment is calibrated the wrong way. And that's what I believe happens when people say, oh, sun's bad for you, let me take this pill. And they don't really stop to look at all the side effects of many pills. Again, I should clarify if you are prescribed certain medicines, whether it's for depression or anything else. I'm not your doctor. I'm not telling you to throw all the pills away. What I am telling you is if you are feeling down and you're physically able spend at least some time a day, preferably first thing in the morning, early in the morning, walking outside, getting natural sunlight. There's no profit model for me prescribing that to you. There's no profit model for anyone in the medical establishment prescribing that to you. And that's why it doesn't occur to us as often as get this pill, get that pill, get this new therapy, try this new drug, try this new mushroom drug, try this new mda. All of those things have profit models. I'm here because I want to help you and help you see beyond the various profit models. Look through biases so you can really figure out what is going to help you the most. So that's the latest on sun. Again, I'm not saying never put sunscreen away. Throw it away and they'll bake like a lot of us did in the 1970s. That's not my message, but try to get some sunlight every single day. I do think that is good medicine, even though I'm not a medicine doctor. Okay. In other news, some exciting things going on in the tech arena. Specifically what's going on at Meta. This is some eye popping news here. Meta has just dropped over $200 million to lure Apple's top AI engineer Roming Pang to its elite superintelligence team. This is according to Bloomberg yesterday. The deal includes base salary, signing bonus and long term stock, all tied to Meta's performance and Pang's loyalty. It rivals CEO pay at major banks. Not only that, it rivals superstar pay for the top performers in the X. Not only that, it rivals superstar pay for the top performers in the NBA or any sports. It certainly rivals what founders get if their company goes public. And this guy, not to diminish him, this guy is going to have the perks of being an employee. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also secured AI power players like Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Scale AI's Alexander Wang, whose company Meta now owns 49% of worth $14.3 billion. OpenAI's Sam Altman recently accused Meta of offering $100 million signing bonuses to Poach's team. He hasn't spoken to Zuckerberg since, but expects a face to face meeting at Sun Valley this week. That's that big fancy conclave out in Idaho where all the tech and media big shots get together in the summer. So what are we really to make of all of this? $200 million deals, talent war really opening up between Meta OpenAI, Apple, Anthropic, the big stock packages. What's the significance to you and me? There are several things. First, let's look at Apple's strategy. They have been criticized by people on Pivot, New York Magazine, and others as saying Zuckerberg's trying to just throw money at this. It reminds a lot of people of how he just threw so much money into the metaverse. A few years ago. They were going to dominate the metaverse, and they spent tens of billions of dollars trying to be kings of the metaverse. Only one problem. Nobody gave a darn about the metaverse, and it completely, for the most part, disappeared and is widely considered just, you know, a fad that was a joke and a waste of time and money. Now, no one's really suggesting AI is a fad that is just going to be seen as a joke a few years later. But there is this perception that people don't like Mark Zuckerberg. People think of Facebook as perhaps the most odious and toxic of all social media platforms, with how it is contributed in some cases to racial wars and ethnic targeting and caused the deaths of people in certain countries, the way it amplifies anger and disinformation. So a lot of people just don't like Mark Zuckerberg. It doesn't have that positive halo effect that Apple does, for example. So if you spend a lot of money to get people to come work for you, there's a sense that they're just mercenaries. And there is an axiom in the world of warfare is if the people who are your soldiers are just mercenaries, you're not going to win the war. They're going to cut and run. They're not going to give you their all. They're going to be looking for an escape hatch. They'll be phoning it in. Is that what will happen to Facebook? I don't know. I've been on Facebook since 2008. I've advertised on Facebook. I have. Like most people, I have profoundly mixed feelings about Facebook, as a lot of people do. So can they really buy their way to AI supremacy? I'll put myself at the camp of a lot of other people, and that doubtful. Are they going to continue to do well? Are they going to continue to make boatloads of money every single day? Yes. Well, Mark Zuckerberg's great, great, great grandchildren be able to become heroin addicts and sit around all day and do nothing if they want to? Yes, he'll be that rich. They will be that rich. So I'm certainly not predicting the demise of a media business that is used by half of the human beings on planet Earth on a near daily basis. They got something going for them that's working very well. They have the ability to put advertisers in front of billions of people and that's always going to be worth billions of dollars. But are they going to really dominate the world of AI? I am doubtful. Now let's switch gears a minute and really look at what is happening to us as individuals when it comes to our own careers and what is relevant here. And I want to say hello to some of our friends who've just joined us and in the last few minutes, Beatrice has joined us. Beatrice, so thank, thank you so much for joining us. I'm happy you're here. Glad you're finding this interesting. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post. Fatima writes in and says hello. What's the topic? Well, we're talking about a handful of topics today. Right now we're talking about engineers being lured to Facebook, getting $200 million paydays and what that means to you and me. And Matthew's finding this incredible. Beatrice says, we are learning to analyze the infos. That is exactly what communiverse this show is all about, how to analyze the news through the lens of communication skills in order to boost your own success, your own personal development. And Matthew writes, my greatest concern is growing the divide between classes even further. Well, when you talk about that relates exactly to what we're talking about in this story. Because when you're talking about one person getting a $200 million paycheck, typically that means the person offering, in this case Facebook, says this one guy, and typically a guy for software engineers, getting that kind of pay is going to be more valuable than a thousand engineers. Now, Bill Gates once famously said, you know, the difference between a good software engineer and a truly great engineer is not twice as good or three times as good as ten times as good. Now, with the power of artificial intelligence, that's magnified to intensify to more like a thousand times better. So this is one reason why you're seeing a lot of kids coming out of school, especially if they don't come out of MIT or one of the top schools or ITT in India, they're not coming out of one of the top schools. A lot of people with basic computer science programming skills are suddenly finding themselves unemployed and unemployable because it's not just chat GPT it's other AI systems are good at doing the program automatically for free or for almost free. So so many computer software programming tasks that used to be done by a relatively low paid introductory programmer, they're not getting that gig anymore. You know, the old advice of hey, you want a guaranteed job? Major in computer science, which is what people said 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even a few years ago, has now been ridiculed as that's. That advice is about as bad as getting a face tattoo in terms of your career. So let's go a little deeper. What's the real meaning of this? Let's be honest. Chances are neither one of us, not you, not me, are ever going to get a $200 million job offer for a year because we are great world class AI engineers. And I mean that no disrespect. You may be a good AI engineer, but the chances of getting a deal like that are very slim. But to me, that's not the real message. The message to me is in this world that's increasingly having artificial intelligence touch every single aspect of every industry, they're going to be some big winners and there's going to be a whole lot of losers. And I say losers not in the sense of casting aspersions on anyone's moral worth. I mean losers in the sense of we're not going to have a job, or we're going to have a job that pays 50% less than it did a few years ago, or 90% less, or a job we're not going to get unless we move to an extraordinarily low cost part of the world. That's what I mean by losers. So who are the winners? The winners are going to be people who can demonstrate excellence and be the number one in the world at something the marketplace values. Now again, I'm not going to be a world class AI engineer. That's not my background. I'm not someone with that sort of scientific, mathematical engineering background. Good chance you aren't either, even if you are in the tech space. But you do have the potential of being number one in the world at something as you narrowly define it. I define myself as being the number one online communication skills trainer in the world. That's how I tried to position myself in my own career in the last decade. And I think I can back it up. I have 12 million student enrollments for my online communication courses. As far as I know, it's more than anyone else in the world. I create more content than anyone else. I have 300 courses on this topic. Now, are there other good communications experts in the world? Sure. Could they make the case they're the best? Okay, maybe. But I specifically put my flag in the ground in a certain spot. And I've been working on it, really. Not the last 10 years, for the last 25 years, to be the number one media trainer, communication skills trainer in the world. So I positioned myself that way. I've niched myself that way. I've narrowed my focus. I didn't try to be a generic trainer who teaches people about every aspect of leadership and every aspect of management and every aspect of strategic thinking. I didn't try to be all things to all people. We live in an era of specialization. And I don't know this individual who was hired by Meta, this Rumong Pang, and he's clearly got a real grasp on artificial intelligence or they wouldn't be giving him a $200 million pay package. But as far as I know, he's not good at basketball, and he may be good at basketball. He's not necessarily the best person to work a room. He might not be the best comedian. He's good at one thing, he may have other talents, but. But he has spent a lot of time in his life really honing deep, deep, deep expertise. And that is my message to you. It's not enough to just say, oh, the market says there's need for a computer scientist, so let me get a computer science degree, send out my resume. That's not going to be good enough anymore. Now you can make the case that we need to change as a society and to make it more inclusive. I'm all in favor of that, but right now we're switching in this show to the aspect of the show that's about your personal development, your personal success. So I'm giving advice now not to political leaders about public policy. I'm giving advice to you how to help your career. And my advice is, you got to figure out what is it you do that you're really good at. And, and if you spent not just today, next week, next month, next year, but at least the next five years, fine tuning, polishing, sharpening your axe, how could you position yourself as the best in the world at that? One of the ways of doing it is to figure out how can you use artificial intelligence better than anyone else in your field? That's something I've tried to do, which is, again, I'm not the artificial intelligence programming genius, but I was the first to figure out how to come up with an interactive AI, video clone communication skills coach. If you're interested, you can go to tjwalker AI and try it out. I didn't create the technology, but I used the technology other platforms created so I could be the first to market as an AI, interactive video media training coach, public speaking coach, so that I could stay cutting edge. Now, am I making a fortune on it? No. I lose money every month. And you know what? That's okay. When I decided, now it's getting close to 30 years ago that I wanted to be number one in online training, I did my first course in 1998. I lost money for 15 years. But wow, has it paid off in the last 10 years. Am I urging you to become an online training coach and lose money for 15 years? No, you might not ever need to do online training. What I'm urging you to do is to really think clearly about what do you care about the most? What are you good at? What does the market reward? What skills do you have and that you're willing to develop to get better and better and better. And if you do that, especially if you learn how to use artificial intelligence in a way that makes you more productive on a daily basis, you're going to be in good shape for as long as human beings are used for any labor. Now, we may get to the point where artificial intelligence is so good there's no need for any human labor. I still think we're, we're a few years away from that. Beatrice says thank you and you're welcome. Fatima says, thanks, appreciate the praise. And Beatrice says, really like your courses on Udemy. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Beatrice, if you don't mind, just share what course you're in. Would love to hear from you on that and what particular skill you are trying to learn. Meanwhile, we're going to go to the final segment of the day and talk specifically about what has happened to small businesses with some of these recent trade tariffs. Trump's tariffs are crushing a sourdough startup. That's the headline. The New York Times and the Economist report that Trump's chaotic tariff policies are quietly devastating American small business. Eric Fabian is a founder of a sourdough startup in North Carolina. Let me get you the article here. He's a startup founder. He has had to postpone his product launch after tariffs on his China made dough beds surged to 145%. He's now stuck with a delayed shipment, $150,000 in unexpected fees, and furious Kickstarter backers. His website says sold out, not because of success, but because he can't import his own inventory. Meanwhile, the economist warns that the average U.S. tariffs are up from 2.5% to nearly 10%, heading toward 17% by August. That's raising prices, slowing growth and damaging long term investment. As one economist put it, uncertainty is its own tax. Now, this particular sourdough startup faces 30% price hikes just to stay afloat. But it doesn't really know when it can ever pay for sources for these things. The prices change so often. Here's why I think this is so significant to so many. And my heart goes out to this entrepreneur based in North Carolina, which is my old home state. I do feel sorry for what he's going through because he just doesn't know what to do. He came up with a product, he had a passion apparently for creating sourdough bread. He's got some device that keeps it exactly at the right temperature to maximize your ability to bake sourdough bread. I'm not a baker of bread, so I don't know all the intricacies of it, but people love the idea. Kickstarter people gave him a lot of money, orders came in, but now with tariffs changing every day, he can't get it fulfilled. Now he talked to the government officials in charge of small business and they just said, well, you know, find a local provider. Well, guess what? There's nobody in America willing to build this thing without charging 300% of what the suppliers in China are able to make it for. He can't sell it if they can't make it profitable at that particular rate. So here's the part of the debate ongoing with tariffs that I think gets lost in America. We want people like this gentleman. And I'll flash, his name is Eric Fabian. Let me try to go ahead and share this guy's face and what he's like so we can really connect a face with the person and what is going on here. So this is a guy in North Carolina, had a passion. You can see the bread there. It looks quite tasty. Eric Fabian, co founder of Sour House in Asheville, North Carolina. Beautiful town, love going to Asheville. And he's doing what we tell people in America to do. Be entrepreneurial, take risks, create jobs for people. He's done all this. He's essentially done what we've asked him to do as an American. And now he's basically being destroyed. He may have to go out of business, he may have to declare bankruptcy. And again, let's step back a minute. Businesses in the modern world are complicated. They're elaborate supply chains. So he and his team are in charge of the concept of the marketing, of the design of the marketing, of the fundraising of the management. There's so many task in running a small business. He's either doing it himself or he has people that he works with here in the United States. But he did need the actual factory production of the product made in China and he can't do it. So we're punishing someone who's trying to be entrepreneur. This guy wasn't looking for a handout. He wasn't there at the welfare or the snap line trying to get money and saying, I don't want to do any work. Here's a guy being entrepreneurial, trying to build a business, trying to create wealth for himself so he can pay his taxes to the federal government, his city government. North Carolina has a state income tax. He could pay state income tax if he's actually making income. And now he can't do it because any given day of the week he has no idea what his costs are going to be or when they can even be shipped to him or when he can place orders. So there are real consequences to this. Tough talk of changing your mind every day or every second or in every tweet about tariffs and being tough on people. Matthew writes definitely. Explore Course by TJ thank you Matthew. I've been working through one on Udemy and has boosted my public speaking as well as my pitch negotiation. Well, that's great and I'd love to hear exactly what you're pitching and if I can help in any way. Beatrice says thanks. Madib says hello. Mad of asking Helion so madam, thanks so much for joining today. Madhav, you always have an eye for detail, clothing, etc. I will ask your opinion on the background. Some have suggested on my screen here there's a little too much going on. Spinning, it can be distracting. I don't know how I feel about it. We're testing a lot of different things. I will be moving to a new studio in a couple of weeks, so we're going to be rebuilding the entire studio. So we'd appreciate any thoughts you have on that. We've gone over time today. I appreciate your time. Thanks for your attention, your focus. Thanks to everyone for showing up. Please, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to this channel. Like it now if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, leave a comment and make sure that you have liked the Facebook page or my LinkedIn page and please leave a comment. Anything you like, anything you don't like. Any topics that you want me to analyze, please look at. As I mentioned earlier, this is essentially a working pilot. This is a soft launch. We're going to be adding more production bells and whistles and rolling this course or this, not this course, this show out on a daily basis on every podcasting platform and every social media platform beginning September 2nd. So thanks so much for watching today. I will see you tomorrow.