Wall Street Traders Hire Agents Like Hollywood Stars

Foreign. Hedge fund stars are now getting Hollywood style agents to negotiate their contracts. In Zurich, an AI actress is drawing interest from talent agents. Believe it or not, as studios quietly prepare to embrace artificial intelligence, new test results show steep declines in US Reading and math skills, raising alarms about the nation's future workforce. Silicon Valley is importing China's punishing 996 work culture. That's 9am to 9pm Six days a week. And one of America's top longevity researchers says supplements and fads are a waste of time. His advice? Focus on sleep and exercise instead. All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Foreign Welcome. Thanks for joining me today. This is the Sunday edition of Filtered with TJ Walker, where every single day, seven days a week, we look at the top news stories that focus on business news, technology and culture and then analyze them, filter them through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. Let's hop right in today. By the way, there's no stock market report today. We do give an update after every single day where there's active training, but obviously a Sunday. There's no trading on Saturday, so no update. Okay. Story one. Hedge funds get their own Hollywood agents. This is according to the Wall Street Journal. Hedge fund stars are now being courted like pro athletes and movie celebrities. And one man is stepping in to make sure they're treated that way. Ryan Walsh, a former portfolio manager at Citadel and Millennium, launched Laurel Lake Advisors last year, the first talent agency dedicated solely to hedge fund professionals. Walsh told the Journal, I'm looking to be the Scott Boris of hedge fund world, referring to the baseball agent known for negotiating record breaking contracts. Demand for traders and stock pickers has surged as giant funds like Citadel and Millennium expand. Walsh says he's already held a decent dozen clients land portfolio manager jobs worth a combined $180 million. In return, Laurel Lake charges a small percentage of each contract, sometimes more if the deal tops certain thresholds and covers legal review of employment agreements. For hedge fund talent, the agent era may have just begun. Okay, so what's the real message here? We're in a culture that glorifies money, money, money, money. It doesn't seem to matter how you get it. We've got people in every aspects of our culture going for the quick money grab. So I guess it makes sense. The top Wall street managers, hedge fund managers, have their own agents because a teeny slice of somebody making $100 million a year obviously adds up to more than a teeny slice of someone getting a TV commercial for $800. So it's the world we live in. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. This does intrigue me at many levels. And conflict of interest alert. I do work with a lot of fund managers, mutual fund managers, occasional hedge fund managers, a lot of Wall street wizards. And they're all totally nice and delightful and charming to me. Well educated and interesting people. Let's get that out of the way. So if you want to say I'm biased, you can do so. But having said all that, this does strike me as crazy. Absolute crazy. Warren Buffett famously talks about how crowd psychology works and how individuals start thinking of themselves as such geniuses. Says, you know, you can take every single person in the world and say, flip a coin today and guess in advance whether it's heads or tails. Well, every day, roughly half the people would be wrong. You keep on doing this. And he points out, you know, after a month or so, there's still going to be some people who get it right. Just statistically speaking, some are going to get it right and it's human nature to then say, well, I'm a genius. And he points out, some of these people would be writing books about how to, how to be a genius at predicting how the coin will land. There'd be people holding seminars and workshops on, you know, the art of calling coin flipping and reality. It's all dumb luck. Now am I saying every single financial manager who makes a lot of money and starts a hedge fund that goes from 100 million to 23 billion is just lucky? I'm not saying it's all luck. They do put in long hours. But you know who else puts in long hours? Janitors, home health care workers. You don't see them making hundreds of millions of dollars. Make no mistake about it. I'm not trying to regulate their pay away or their compensation. I do believe in a free market capitalistic system. But the idea of treating these people like superstars, like creative geniuses, like people that have extraordinarily rare athletic talent, it is silly because when you actually look at the data, there's no there there. That's right. I'm going to share with you some data right now. I asked ChatGPT and I've double checked this from other sources as well. Here's the real test. If you look at an investment period of say a 30 year period, which if you are in your 20s, 30s, 40, even 50s, I would argue if you're trying to amass wealth, especially if it's generational wealth, you're not looking to make a quick buck tomorrow, right? You're not looking to just have gains tomorrow or for the week or even for the year. You're looking to build long term wealth for your own retirement, for your family, for generational wealth. When you look at it through that way, it makes sense to look at things from the long term perspective. And lo and behold, what do you know? If you actually look at these geniuses, hedge fund managers and mutual fund managers, long term, they're lousy, they're horrible. How horrible you may ask. Well, funny you should ask. Let's just go to chat GPT now and, and it will tell us. So I asked the question if you factor in fees, because all these guys charge fees a lot more than if you just invested directly in an S P500 index or some low cost Vanguard index fund. Full disclosure, I get no fees and represent none of them officially. So when you look at that over a 30 year period, none of these guys, and they're mostly guys, beat the average, or so few as to be statistically insignificant. They may have a good year, they may have a couple good years, and that is luck. Here's the one thing I have noticed about all the mutual fund managers that I've worked with who are nice guys. When the market goes up and they beat the market a little, it's their genius. When the market goes down and they fail to beat the average, like the world is crazy, people have become irrational. Well, it's your job, if you're a money manager, to factor in the irrationality of human beings. That's why some people invest in cigarette companies. They know it's irrational to smoke. But hey, people are going to and I want to make money. So you can't have it both ways. You can't say, I realize human beings are irrational and I'm investing in betting companies and gambling companies and cigarette companies. On the other hand, things go down, you fail to beat the average and all of a sudden say, well, it's not fair to judge me negatively because people have become irrational. It's really wanting to win no matter what. Heads I win, tails you lose is the mentality of a lot of people on Wall street hoarder managers. Again, let's look at some of the numbers here. Among active US large cap mutual funds versus the S&P 500. Once you factor in fees, everything else, what the research shows is that the people, the fund managers who beat the S and P average, it's could be as low as 0% at most. You're looking at 2%, the absolute MO over 30 year period, any given year, yeah, somebody will be lucky. I could pick a winning lottery ticket tomorrow. Are you then going to give me all of your money to invest forever to buy your lottery tickets because I'm somehow a genius? No, I got lucky once and by the way, I don't play the lottery. So when you look at the large cap mutual funds, they do horribly long term. So again, only at most 2% beat the S&P 500 index. So if you want to make money, unless you know in advance, oh, I got the lucky, I'm going to somehow be a genius, ignore the 98% of people who are going to lose me money compared to an index fund. I'm going to pick the 2% at best because in some, in some time periods it's actually 0% beat during a 30 year period. Now academics have looked at this as well. There is something known as the fame of French luck versus skill that shows the aggregate net alpha of mutual funds is negative. That's a fancy way of saying these guys aren't worth their Feees, especially the 2 and 20 guys where they get 2% of the money, you give them 20% of the upside. All you need is a couple of good years. You know, if you go out and it's a good market time and you raise, let's say 500 million a billion dollars and you're charging 2 and 20, you only need a couple of good years. If you just do as well as the market, in that market, you're set for life. And then if you have bad years, you lose money, you close the shop. Why do you care? You probably have $40 million in the bank. So let's look at hedge funds. An industry study of hedge funds show that they also lag the S&P 500 over the long period once you factor in fees. And why do these guys stick it to you with their fees? Warren Buffett once famously said, hedge fund is not an investment strategy, it's a business. Income. Fee strategy is really what it is. It's not about helping people make more money. So again, if you look at the long term mutual funds, hedge fund managers, the best case scenario is that you're going to lose 98% of the time versus having put your money directly into an S&P 500 index fund or some other low cost index fund, you got a 2% chance. I mean, if you're that happy with 2% odds, go to Vegas and play blackjack because it's really not much difference. And no, I'm not really suggesting you spend your money playing blackjack, but this is a fool's errand, giving your money to fund managers. And forgive me, and some of my clients may be watching, they might not want to use me again. That's okay. I'm at the point in my life when I'm focused primarily on wanting to give you truth and to have you benefit from my own experiences to help you. So that's why there's a part of me that just sees this absurdity, absolute, utter absurdity of treating fund managers like their Hollywood movie. They're George Clooney. They're Tom Cruise. No, they're not. They're Michael Jordan. No, they're not. Michael Jordan has real talents that simply cannot be chalked up to luck. It's not like you can take anyone or even any 6 foot 6 person and say, let's put a thousand 6 foot 6 people on basketball teams and, you know, a couple of them will just randomly score 30 points a game and win a lot of champions. No, it doesn't work that way. There's a real reason why sports stars and Hollywood stars need representation from agents and why these, these finance guys. And again, it's mostly guys. Not always, but mostly. It's just another thing that is frankly bizarre about our society. I do get it from a revenue model. If you can be an agent, you're far better off representing people who have big numbers behind them, not small numbers. It's that way in every industry. It's that way in the professional speaking industry. Speaker bureaus would much rather represent someone like a Scott Galloway who could charge 150, $200,000 a speech. Because for the same amount of work to get 20% of 200,000, that's $40,000. That's a nice payday if you're getting 20% of a speaker who charges $5000 a speech. Hardly worth dealing with. So we're seeing this in every aspect of society. But to me, the glory that some of these hedge fund managers are getting, it's only going to make them more arrogant. And that's really the last thing we need. More in a moment Filtered is brought to you by the Want to advertise here, you better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you liked today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com. check them out now and level up your skills. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host TJ Walker. Thanks for spending time with me today. Here's what's different about this show. If you're new to the show, spend a little time with me each day. You'll learn more about some of the top stories of the day, and you'll learn a little more about how to be a better communicator yourself, how to have better personal development skills. So that's really the goal of our show, to not just get depressed about the news, but to learn about what's going on in the world and learn about tools, tips, tricks to make ourselves more successful in our professional lives as well as our personal lives. Let's dive right into the next story. AI actress Tilly Nora Wood Attracts Talent Agents Here we are, more talent agents. According to Deadline Hollywood, the entertainment industry may soon have its first AI superstar with an agent. Actor and technologist Elaine Van Der Velde announced at the Zurich Summit that her AI talent studio, excoia, I'm not sure if I'm really saying that the right way, but that's what it looks like is in talks with several agents about representing Tilly Norwood and are a fully artificially intelligent actress, whatever that means. Vander Velden created Exoia earlier this year after launching her AI production studio, Particle 6, on stage. She explained that agencies are showing serious interest in treating Norwood like a traditional performer, complete with contracts and representation. Joining her on the panel was Verna Poom, who heads Luma AI's new studio, Dream Lab in Los Angeles. Both women suggested that while studios haven't gone public, many are already experimenting with AI in film and television. They predicted that major announcements about high profile projects using AI technology will surface in the coming months. Okay, what's the real message here of AI actresses getting agents? It means the future is here, and if you are someone who wants to be an actor and actress and just do that and not write and not produce and not collect money and not start your own website and you're going to be washing dishes or waiting tables very quickly. AI is coming and it's taking over industry after industry after industry. There's no industry that would rather reduce cost than big entertainment. Okay, let's go a little bit deeper here. This is a fascinating story to me. What I can't quite get my head around is why would a big Hollywood company want to use an AI actress when they could simply plug in a few digits, a few prompts and create their own AI actress? AI actor. I had to guess here. It's simply because a particular actress can build a following just like a real world actress could. Can build a following, can, can have followers on a social media platform and it's all about promotion. So if you are thinking about doing some new romantic comedy and you could cast an AI actress which is just a bunch of pixels, but this bunch of pixels looks calmly, shall we say, and has 10 million followers on Instagram and 20 million followers on Facebook and 30 million followers on TikTok. And you know that if you pay, let's say, a million dollars to the people who own this AI actress, but you're going to get $5 billion worth of publicity from all the social media push because of the followers. I guess it does make sense. It seems kind of crazy at first blush, but it is a business. And Hollywood stars are always. And Hollywood agencies and Hollywood production studios and movie directors and producers are always going to be looking for ways of saving money and getting more promotion. Let's step back for a minute. When, when a Hollywood studio hires someone like a George Clooney or a Meryl Streep or a Tom Cruise, a part of the value and typically put into the contracts is that they have to go on publicity tours and go on late night talk shows like Jimmy Fallon and others and promote, promote, promote. Many actors will tell you that they see their jobs more as being a spokesperson for a creative product rather than even acting. Because there are many times when an actor may spend more time on screen doing TV shows, promoting a movie than the actual amount of time they spent in front of a movie camera making it. And that's a part of the business, if you didn't like that, go off and do Broadway shows, go do regional theater. So that's not necessarily a problem. But what I can't quite get my hands around is is it going to make sense for Hollywood directors and producers to just get an AI actress with the AI actor with the idea that they are going to be able to go on talk show? We may have a point where there's an AI Jimmy Fallon or an AI Jimmy Kimmel interviewing an AI actress about the latest AI movie. I mean, it Sounds pretty meta to me. It's hard for me to get excited about watching a show like that, but maybe that just means I'm old. Maybe that is better than real people. I don't know. What do you think about? I'd love to hear from you on this. If you have any firm opinions, strong opinions about whether you're going to go see movies, watch TV shows with AI actresses and AI actors, let me know. You can post your thoughts in the comments. You can always go to my YouTube community. You just go to my YouTube page and click on post and you can find me by typing in TJ Walker Success or filtered with TJ Walker. This does seem to be perplexing. There's some big, big players involved. What's the real message for you though? If you are in a creative field, especially if you are someone like an actor or an actress, I think you need to be scared. We all need to be scared at some level that AI is coming for us. Now. I've already created my own AI digital interactive video clone. So if clones are taking over everything, at least I want to be the one programming it, as I already have. And you may have seen ads for it. Tjwalker AI. But what do you do if you want to be the next Robert Tenier or the next Meryl Streep? My advice to you is you got to start planning now for a world where. Where maybe there is no such thing as a Paramount, maybe there is no such thing as Hollywood. Maybe what we have is millions of people creating content. Some of it may be 90 minutes long, like a feature, some of it may be up on a big screen. But we live in a world where there are millions of creators and if you want to be an actor, maybe you have to write the script, maybe you have to produce it, maybe you have to direct it. Maybe you're the only live actor in the show and everything else is a digital creation. Is an artificial intelligent actor or actress. That might not sound like a lot of fun. It might not sound like your creative vision or why you wanted to go with. I'm sorry, I'm not making the rules of what happens here in artificial intelligence, but I am trying to observe and help you prepare and myself prepare as well. I do think we are going to see in the very near future a movie that gets mainstream distribution, is in cineplexes around the US and around the world. And the entire movie was made in a 17 year old's bedroom without any cameras, meaning it was all scripted, created using artificial intelligence, scored with Artificial music, the whole bit. And it's going to be a huge success because at some level, it's going to have an interesting story. And at some level, if you're staring at a screen, you may know whether it's real or not, but you know, nothing in a big action movie is real. Yes, they are real actors, but we're so used to seeing AI generated everything. What's the difference between seeing a Superman movie where 98% of what's on the screen other than the actor's face is created by AI and digitally versus 100%? It's not that much of a difference. So here's the real message now for everyone. Not just if you're an actor, not just if you're an aspiring starlet or you want to be a movie star. It's really for all of us. We have to think about whatever value we're creating. If you're an actor, you're creating the value of creating something of literary, cultural, entertainment value for people. If your goal is to entertain people and get them to stop thinking about politics and Washington and taxes, their kids, that should be the goal. You've now got to think about, how do I use every single tool imaginable? Because if you wanted to be an actor, you know, 100 or so years ago, unless you were Charlie Chaplin, you were performing live every night in vaudeville on a stage and having to tour around and make virtually no money. If you were an entertainer, you would join the circus. Nowadays, that's not what most people do. We're already using if you like to sing. There was a time when you had to just go sing in front of people live. And then people started using technology. They used microphones, they used record players, they pressed records and then CDs, and they tracked tapes in there and now download. So there's always been a fusion of technology and entertainment, but really for all skills, because make no mistake about it, it's the transformation, the disruption, and that's just a fancy word for a whole bunch of people are going to get fired because some of the bosses are going to figure out how to save money and therefore make money for themselves. It's coming in every single industry. It's coming in every single field. And this only way to do it is to run a little faster and. And stay ahead. Sorry if that's not completely a rosy scenario, but that is reality. More in a moment after these commercial words filtered is brought to you by the following. You don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits and I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com confidence isn't a personality trait, it's a skill skill. And it's trainable. Welcome back to Filtered on this beautiful Sunday morning. It's beautiful here where I am in South Florida. Hope it is where you are as well. I've had a fantastic day already with playing pickleball, swimming, hot tub, hanging out with friends. But now it's still the morning and I get to spend time with you. Thank you so much for spending a little time with me. Issue 3 Falling reading and math scores threaten the US workforce According to the New York Times, American employers and colleges are increasingly, increasingly grappling with a generation of students entering adulthood with weaker math and reading skills. National test results for high school seniors show the steepest reading declines in 30 years and the lowest math scores since 2005. Professors say students now struggle to finish long articles while employers, from healthcare to trucking, worry about mistakes in dosage, billing and logistics. The causes range from pandemic disruptions to rising screen time, something I'll talk about more in a moment. But the effects are far reaching. The US already ranks 28th globally in math, behind nearly every other major industrialized democracy. Experts warn that artificial intelligence makes foundational skills more, not less important. AI can do the first draft of the memo or solve the equation, said Jamie Mersotis of the Lumina Foundation. It is the worker who needs to understand what they are reading, ensure it is accurate, and decide what to do next. Okay, what's the real message here? Reading skills are plummeting throughout the United States. What's the culprit? What's the cause? Maybe it's right here in our hand. If you can't read more than one tweet, one text, one email, one headline at a time, how are you ever going to get your way all the way through War and Peace or even a small little novel or Catcher in the Rye? A short book? It's not possible because your brain is frazzled. The only solution is going to be less screen time. Let's dig a little deeper now. Look, I like to Use my cell phone. I'm using it right now. I'm broadcasting on it live on TikTok because that's the only way I can reach the TikTok community. So I'm as guilty as the next. But what do you do if you're a parent and you're concerned about your child's future, especially with all of this doom and gloom people are talking about. Like me with AI putting so many people out of business, I can't predict everything that's going to happen in the future. But I. But something I feel very strongly about. You only increase your odds of being successful in the future world if you're smart enough to think and create and to focus for a sustained period of time. Solving hard problems that I'm very confident is going to be a winner. And if you don't, if you're not able to do that, you're going to be a big loser. I don't mean your moral worth, but your worth in the economy. You're going to be a big loser. No one's going to hire you. There's not going to be much value in your work. So it is more critical than ever. I'm not saying everyone has to go to college and get a PhD. You can decide to stop school in 10th grade, do something else, but you're going to be a lot more better positioned for success if you know how to read a complex thought, a sustained argument, which is what a book is. A book is a sustained argument. A book is fundamentally different than you posting something on Facebook and somebody you don't know writing, failure, loser, you're insane, niptard or something like that. That's not sustained thought, that's not complexity. Real value. In fact, one of the reasons these hedge fund managers are making so much money is they dress up everything in so much complexity. They confuse people. And most people think finance is way too complicated. I can't handle that. Let me give all my money to. To this fund manager or this hedge fund manager or this mutual fund, because they're so smart they'll take care of it. And as we talked about in the previous segment, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers really aren't smarter than a monkey who just takes a bunch of money and walks across the room and puts it into a bucket. Mark S&P 500 index funds. But what these fund managers are good at is talking about complexity and showing complexity and creating complex graphs. And now that's not necessarily a good thing. But if you want to help protect and preserve a future for Your child or yourself. I'm urging you, spend more time reading. You say, well, T.J. i read all day long. I'm on my cell phone. I read thousands of stories a day. Yeah, two. Two headlines and maybe a paragraph in. That's not a sustained argument. What most of us do when we think of ourselves as reading is we're skimming news quite often in a filter bubble where we're just getting confirmation bias. We're seeing stories about a politician we don't like. And here's yet another story about how this politician is the worst person on planet Earth. And we think, well, I'm staying up on the news. I'm staying up on the issues. Well, no, you're really not. And I'm guilty of that, too. My recommendation, I don't care if you're 5 years old. I don't care if you're 25 years old. I don't care IF you're 95 years old. All of us have to get better at turning off our phones, turning off our screens, and reading real books. You don't need me to tell you what book to read. Find your own passion, find your own interest. Could be hobbies, could be nonfiction, could be fiction. There's something very different about how the brain interacts with words on a page. And it could be a digital page. Now, I went through a phase where I got. I got rid of all my books, did everything digitally, and then I went through a phase where I said, no, I'm only going to read a paper book for the last hour of every night. And I gotta tell you, my productivity skyrocketed, my income skyrocketed. A lot of things went really well. I now have shifted back to digital, but I use the. The Kindle Paperwhite, and I'm not getting any payment for mentioning them here. It's what I like about the Paperwhite is you can adjust the light so low that I really can read it the last hour of every night. And if the light is not stimulating my brain and keeping me awake the way a cell phone does. And yeah, I understand you can change the intensity of your cell phone, but I'm not smart enough to figure out how to do that. And it's. There's still more. The problem with the cell phone is it's too easy to get a text coming in to get a tweet, to get. To say, oh, let me just Google it. Let me just look at what ChatGPT says on that subject. And before you know it, your brain is Scrambled. And then, oh, you got an email from a client saying they're upset with you and now you can't sleep. So that is the problem with saying, oh, I'm just going to read a book on my phone. It's a horrible way. It's better than nothing, but it's really a horrible way to have sustained focus. We live in a world where the big tech folks, the Facebooks, the Googles of the world, the Twitters of the world, have the most brilliant minds alive, all trying to figure out, how can I get your attention, how can I get you to click? How can I get you. How can I get you to spend another 30 seconds looking at this titillating clickbait so we can send you another ad and make more money? That's what they're all doing, and that's how they're getting rich. And you got to fight that. Unless your name is Mark Zuckerberg. And I don't think Mark is watching now, you got to figure out, how can you fight that? And the biggest way to do it is to turn it off. Spend your time building your brain, your kids brain, your own brain, protecting it, preserving it. And in order to do that, you need to be able to constantly hone the ability to have sustained focus. And look, I like documentaries. Educational. It's not the same thing. I can watch a documentary and you can weave in and out and it's just going to keep going. You fall asleep in a book, when you wake up, it's still going to be on the same page. And that's why there is something special about reading. And no, it's not a bias. That's somehow racist or sexist or western or anything else. People read all over the world, successful people read all over the world. And I, you know, I went to just public schools from first grade, second grade, all the way through 12th grade. And I don't think they were particularly bad public schools, but they weren't better than any average. I credit my own success, whatever success I've had, whether you even consider it success, because I developed a habit of reading early. When I was in elementary school, I really prided myself in reading a book a day. Now, these are often thin books, but I really prided myself in reading a book a day. And to this day, I do read books every day. I don't read an entire book every day. And I'm not a huge fan of the culture of speed reading. I want to read slowly, to think, reflect, but I typically read one, often two books a week. I would urge you to build that habit into your own lifestyle. And if you have a kid, I don't care if the kid wants to be a welder. If your kid wants to be a plumber, we need welders. We need plumbers. Your kids will not be worse off if they spend one hour a day less staring at screens, TVs, phones, iPads, and one hour a day doing nothing but reading. Not a magazine. They're a good magazine. Not the news. There's good news. And I appreciate those of you reading the filtered newsletter, but actually reading a real book because we are facing a crisis. Our military can't find people who just could do basic stuff. Reading a manual of how to operate a tank is becoming a huge problem. And it's not just at the low end. What we're finding, and this story illustrates in the New York Times, is that even elite schools are finding the kids who do well on standardized tests and who got into highly selective schools can't really write or understand complex works of fiction because if you don't use it, you do in fact lose it. More news in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach. And even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at TJ Walker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to filtered issue four. Silicon Valley adopts China's 996-hustle culture. According to the New York Times, Silicon Valley's latest obsession isn't just artificial intelligence. It's a punishing work schedule imported from China. The 996 culture means working 9am to 9pm Six days a week. Wow. Originally popularized in China's tech scene, it was out leveled there. That's right. They actually outlawed it in 2021 by a high court ruling. But in California, tech workers and executives are now embracing it, posting on X and LinkedIn about their long hours. Evidence is emerging in job postings and hiring interviews where companies ask candidates if they're willing to work 70 hour weeks. Ramp, a financial startup, even tracked more weekend corporate card use in San Francisco this year, a sign people are working on Saturdays. Historians note that Silicon Valley has always had a workaholic undercurrent beneath its casual image. But today's AI fueled boom and post layoff insecurities are back, pushing hustle culture to the forefront. As one expert put it, the industry's priorities have shifted and hard tech now demands long, hard hours. Okay, what's the real message here of this so called 996 hustle culture? It's really about, look at me, look at how tough I am, look how macho I am, look how strong I am. And for most people, most of the time, it does nothing but make them grumpy, crabby and uncreative. Be very careful. Let's go a little deeper here. I want to be careful here and not make blanket statements. Certainly it's been well documented that someone like a Bill Gates, he didn't work 70 hours a week when he started. He worked 23 hours a day. He famously says he took, I think it was five vacation days, including weekends, Christmas, Thanksgiving, I guess. First 10 years of starting his business, he and his colleagues would work all night long, he would fall asleep and his face was on the keyboard. And then he would wake up, continue coding. And you know what? It worked for Bill Gates. Here's the problem. You're not Bill Gates, I'm not Bill Gates. What works for one person, one extreme outlier, doesn't necessarily work for other people. Now, there's been a tremendous amount of research done on effectiveness, creativity. My favorite expert on this field is Cal Newport. I would advise that you read any one of Cal Newport's books because what he shows is that human beings have a peak maximum amount of creativity in terms of hours where they can really focus. And it turns out it's about four to five hours a day. And some of the most wildly effective, successful people in the history of the world had tremendous focus, like Charles Darwin. And they only worked for four or five hours a day. Charles Darwin had it at a very well known, sort of relaxed atmosphere, working in the morning, long walks, family time, exercise time, afternoon of answering, correspondence, and then, you know, three o' clock time to relax again. Look, am I saying you shouldn't work hard, especially early in your career? No, but it has to be about something. Bill Gates was creating the infrastructure that runs the entire world. Okay, you may love him, you may hate him, but you cannot discount the fact that he was creating something where historically, all the pieces were aligning to make it so that the world could embrace computers and connect to other computers. And he was in a field where, when he worked his butt off, it really created something of extreme value that could be replicated, that was scalable and could be used by people all over the world. And that's why it made him, at one point, the richest man in the world. He probably would be today if he weren't giving away all of his wealth trying to improve public health around the world. So it worked for Bill Gates. It doesn't work for many people. I see countless entrepreneurs bragging about their long hours. Meanwhile, like, what do you have to show for it? What do you get? How many customers do you have? How many new products do you have that people are excited about? And they're talking about, you know, I'm old enough to remember people were excited about computers. That was kind of a new, exciting thing. So what are you excited? What are you getting people excited about with all your long hours? Because otherwise, it just becomes an escape. It's a way of saying, I don't have to deal with real life. I don't have to build a social. I don't have to find a man. Certainly if you're in your early 20s, starting out, it can be a way of delaying maturation. It's a way of saying, I don't really have to decorate my apartment. I'm never home. I don't really have to worry about how to have enough nerve to ask someone out on a date, because I'm working all the time. It's an excuse. I don't have to worry about cultivating friendships. I'm working all the time. I have an excuse. Okay, but show me what you have. And I don't mean you have to become rich in a week or a year or overnight, but make sure it's working towards something. I remember one culture where I was basically forced to work the whole996. It was for a member of Congress. And I could tell you she was one of the least productive members of Congress. But it was run like a cult. You had to be there at 9. You work not to 9pm, sometimes 11pm and it wasn't six days a week, it was seven days a week. And because you worked all the time, there was never a sense of, well, let me really finish this project so we can get out of here. It's like, let me kind of trudge along here. Your Brain goes into slow motion if you're working all the time. Again, there are these rare, rare statistical anomalies, like a Bill Gates who apparently could get by fine working four, five hours a night sleep and still be highly creative in how he figured out how to program computers and to create computer software. Again, you're not Bill Gates. I'm not Bill Gates for most people. And again, I'm looking at the research for people like Cal Newport and others, our brains simply shut off. We've got a period, a time period, maybe four or five hours a day where we can be truly productive. And yeah, you understand, everyone's got some email, some busy work, a meeting you have to go to. And there are other exceptions. If you aspire to be a partner at a senior law firm and you say, hey, I'm going to be more productive if I only work four hours a day, they're going to laugh at you as they are escorting you out the door and firing them. That's just not how that business works, model works. But for most other businesses, your clients don't care how many hours you put in. All they care about is what did you do to value me? What did you do to give me value? What did you do to help my life, my business, help me make money, help me be happier, help me be entertained? That's the only thing customers care about. So when you look at the most productive people in the world, it's certainly fine to say, well, Bill Gates was highly productive. I want to be like him. But I would urge you, look at other people in our culture who are what? Steady Charles Darwin? You want a more recent example? Look at someone like Woody Allen. The Guy's made over 50 movies. He's had one of the most illustrious Hollywood careers, entertainment careers of anyone. He still has time for his hobbies. He has time to play the clarinet every Monday night in his jazz band. His time to go to most nick games. He has time for all sorts of family commitments. So this idea that it's about grind, grind, grind, grind, grind is quite often as a prescription for burnout. It's quite often a way to shut your brain down and make you less creative. If you're less creative in the modern culture, you are less productive. So you can try it, but be very, very careful. It can be a trap. I don't have hard data on this, but I certainly perceive that for every person I encounter who talks about their working all the time, and they're996, 99% of them are not really very successful in the long run and in the short run, their lives are miserable because they have no life. Let's check in with Janice from Unconventional Advice checks in. She says Kindle paper white turning off the communication devices before slip before sleep. Thanks for the tips. So, Janice, so much, thanks for joining us today. Would love your perspective on this growing culture of people in Hollywood saying or not Hollywood in Silicon Valley, you know, it's, it's, it's easy to get those two confused now with, with people in both sides having agents, these people talking about this996 culture. Part of this is being fueled by Elon Musk who famously works, he claims, you know, 20 hours a day, seven days a week. And he has had some successes, there's no doubt about it. But he also seems like he's out of control and that it also seems like a lot of this hard work is fueled by drug use. Don't take my word for it. Look at investigative journalism from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on that one. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and come to our next issue, which is going to be a lot of fun. So get ready for that again. I'm T.J. walker. This is Filtered. I appreciate you spending time with me today on this Sunday. Back in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my Five Book Success Library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room, whether you're on zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now. Through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand, affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for meeting interviews, client presentations or TED style talks, I've got you covered. Check it out mediatrainingworldwide.com you'll never wing it again. Welcome back. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. We are going to look at our sort of our last big issue of the day about longevity. Longevity expert rejects fads, embraces sleep and exercise According to Business Insider, Dr. Stephen Ousted, one of the nation's leading aging researchers, says too many people are chasing expensive, unproven longevity trends. Osted is the scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research. He told Business Insider, I'm not one of these people who spends an hour a day in a hyperbaric chamber or gets infusions of some weird protein vitamin cocktail. He doesn't take supplements either, citing weak evidence that they extend life. Let me read that part. Some of you are saying that's crazy. What are you talking about? You know, let's look at this again. Did I even read that properly? Yes. He doesn't take supplements, citing weak evidence that they extend life. Instead, Osted focuses on two habits, intense daily exercise and time restricted eating. He describes himself as a gym rat, biking for up to 90 minutes and strength training almost every day. That physical exhaustion, he says, is also key to getting good sleep. Offset eats twice a day, sticking to a Mediterranean style diet, heavy on fish, fruit and vegetables. He says longevity shouldn't mean joyless restriction. If you spend all your time thinking about how long you're going to live, you kind of forget to live. Okay, what's the real message here? The longevity experts who get the most media attention, most eyeballs, the most Netflix specials are the ones who say, I take 159 supplements a day and inject them all right here constantly. But real longevity experts say no. They say you don't even need to take supplements. How about exercising every day? How about getting a good night's sleep and not gorging yourself with food all day long? How about that? If you want to live longer. Let's go a little bit deeper here. I wanted to bring attention to this guy, Dr. Stephen Ousted, because he's exactly the sort of guy who, who isn't going to become famous. He's not going to get a Netflix special. His books are probably not going to be a bestseller. He's not going to become a billionaire selling his magic green potion drink powders because he doesn't believe in them. There's no revenue model to make a guy like this sound famous. Because unfortunately, we as human beings are constantly seeking out the magic pill, the magic potion, the magic light, that red light. We're always seeking these shortcuts. And there's always going to be someone who is going to play up to that and manipulate us because they can make money off of us. So I want you to take a little time and check this out. In Business Insider, it's again, it's Dr. Stephen ousted a U S T A D. He's considered by many to be one of the leading aging researchers out there, an expert on longevity. And he's saying, I don't take supplements. You know who else doesn't take supplements? I don't take supplements. I'd like to take. I'd like to believe that it's going to extend my life and help me. But every time I actually look at the research and sort it through. I can't find any hard data showing vitamins supplements actually increase your life and people feel very passionate about it becomes religion for some people. In fact, some religions and religious leaders like the former or the Pat Robertson is no longer with us actually start selling vitamins because they're great pyramid schemes too. They can be great ways of making money. They aren't necessarily going to make you live longer. And my other big problem with all these supplements, all these pills, all these magic greens is what is the stress and damage to your liver and kidney. This guy Brian Johnson, who is the most famous longevity guy out there takes some 153 pills a day. He's had some very negative reactions to some of the treatments he's tried but he gets all the attention. The guy who says exercise, eat healthy, don't be eating late at night and all morning long, that guy doesn't get any attention because there's no money in it. There's no revenue model. It's much better to be able to say, you know, buy my hyperbaric chamber, buy my snake oil, there's money, you have to have my olive oil, anyone else's olive oil, you'll die. Buy my olive oil and you'll live forever. That makes money. And that's not what this health expert, this longevity expert is saying. So my rule of thumb is if you want, if you want real advice on how to live longer, look for people who are not famous but who actually work in the field and know what they're talking about. No, you don't have to take advice from me on your health. But I do think I can at least steer you in the direction of things like someone's trying to sell you a supplement. Ask ChatGPT. What's in this thing? Are there any long term negative consequences? Are there side effects? Because with almost any pill you put in your mouth there are side effects. Am I telling you never take medicine? No. If your doctor's telling you to take a particular medicine, am I telling you listen to TJ and ignore your doctor? No, I'm not saying that. That would be arrogant of me and foolish of you to take my advice. What I am suggesting is stop taking advice from friends and so called influencers on this magic green potion, this ginseng, blah blah blah, that's going to solve all your problems. Maybe your problem will be solved by going to sleep earlier tonight, getting a good night's sleep, turning off your darn phone at 8 o' clock at night. Instead of scrolling TikTok, no offense to my TikTok friends. At 2am Eating real food, those are the things that make us live longer. I want to thank all of you for spending time with me today. That concludes sort of the main section of the show. We typically look at the five top news stories of the day. Now, if you've watched before, you may notice something a little different about today's show. I'll talk about that in just a moment. And I see Rayan has stopped by. Rayan, thank you so much. Thank you for being one of the many people watching. I do appreciate that Muhammad has stopped by to say hello. Claus is with us as well. So thanks. Claude says, so true, it's not easy to break that bad routine. But yes, we have to take care of our health. Muhammad also says, I agree with the experts with exercise, healthy food and sleep, I saw a fundamental improvement in physical and psychological health. Ryan is asking a question or posing a statement about how many people are watching. And ran, I would say to you, you're watching on YouTube, so you're getting a number of people you see watching us live on YouTube. I also have people watching us on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitch, on X, on TikTok, a lot of different platforms. Most of the people who watch this show are watching the on demand version because this show is distributed once we finish the live version. It's distributed on demand on every single major social media platform. It's also distributed in the audio format, in the podcast format. So am I as famous as Joe Rogan? No. Do I have as big of a listenership for my podcast as Call me Daddy? No. But I have to tell you, this show is now less than one month old. We'll be doing I guess our one month anniversary next week and I'm very happy to report that way. If you add up all the views and impressions across all social media and all impressions from newsletters going out and audio downloads, it's adding up to a half a million views, impressions, listens a month. So I'm pretty happy about that. So Ran, I do want to appreciate, thank you for stopping by and Janice and Mohammed and others as well joining us for the live version. Okay. I hinted at it a moment ago. I wanted to see if any of you noticed something different about this show today. Well, there's a person I did not mention today and it was very much by design, did not mention, the orange one, the great orange one in Washington D.C. who I would just, just as soon not mention him at all as I started the very first edition of this show. And as I say regularly, this show is about analyzing top business stories, technology stories, economic stories, and cultural stories of the day, analyzed through the prism of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of making you more successful, happier in your professional life as well as your personal life. But I have to tell you, it's been very, very hard to not talk about Dear Leader, the orange one in Washington D.C. and I don't even want to mention his name. But I want to be able to say I did not mention this rising authoritarian by name even once in the show today because I frankly don't like talking about it. But one of the problems of authoritarian regimes is they want to have their finger in everything. They want to tell people what to watch, what not to watch, who to laugh at, who not to laugh at, that they want to tell you what business can exist, what business can't exist. They want to tell you what bathrooms you can go to and who you're supposed to like and not like, and what religions you're supposed to like and which ones you're supposed to hate. So that's one of the reasons why people around the world generally hate and despise living under authoritarian rule. So it's one of the reasons why this show has has frankly had to spend a lot more time than I would have liked to have spent talking about the Orange Dear Leader on a daily basis for the last month. But I kind of wanted to see, just for myself, can I get through a show without talking about it? And in all, top of the five issues we've discussed today, his name was not brought up and I hope to be able to continue that. Okay, there's a couple more grab bag issues. Typically for the grab bag section of the show, I look at a couple of issues where I do want to share a few insights, but it's not worthy of a full 10 minute explication. The first grab bag issue there's a new AP NORC poll showing that younger adults are far more likely than older viewers to use subtitles when watching TV or movies. Four in 10 under 45 say they use captions often, compared with only three in 10 older adults. Younger people cite multitasking and noisy environments, while older adults turn to captions because of hearing loss or difficulty with accents. Okay, I'm going to make some people very unhappy today and I'm going to make some of you have a knee jerk reaction where you just point and say, look at that old pathetic boomer loser tj. And if that's your first response? Okay. I happen to think it's an abomination to use captions unless you really do have language problems or unless you have hearing problems. And I have great sympathy for people with either issue. The problem as I see it though, is that this whole idea that you can't just enjoy a movie anymore, you have to be on the movie and on your cell phone texting friends and checking your iPad scrolling news. And maybe sometimes that's news updates for me and I'm contributing to the problem. But this idea that you can't allow yourself to focus on one thing at a time I think is an atrocity. I've heard people, my own friends, some of them well educated, highly intelligent, wealthy people, successful by almost every metric in life, MBAs and advanced degrees from some of the top schools in the world, saying, tj, I can't really even read a book anymore. The most I can get through is a magazine. You know, movies are too hard. I'll just watch a 30 minute series show. It's a problem when our brains have been hacked by the AI technology, the big tech overlords who are bombarding us every day, whether it's buy this from Amazon, watch this on Netflix, click here on Facebook, get outraged at someone here on X. If we're having to switch every two seconds and we can't focus on anything, it is rotting our brain. And I'm well aware that I sound a little bit like my father in 1970 saying, TJ, don't watch the boob tube. That's what, what they call television. But this is another sign of telling people, only give something partial attention. Now, if you're only giving me a partial attention now because you're listening on a podcast and you're going for a nice walk, that's okay. I appreciate you spending time with me, but I also think it would be a good idea to sometimes go for a walk and leave your cell phone at home. I find that I increasingly can enjoy a movie if I don't even have my cell phone in the room with me. Now, I'm fortunate enough, and excuse me if this sounds like I'm bragging, I have just moved into a new house and I have a movie room. It's very dark, a large screen, great sound system, reclining chairs, and I just find it's better if I don't even bring my cell phone in there. Picking a show, sitting back and giving something unbridled focus is a better way for me to relax. It's a better way for Me to understand the plot, understand the story, understand what's going on. But this idea that you have to one ear here, one eye ear, another eye there, because you're so important, you have to consume this swirl of sometimes AI slops, sometimes hard news, sometimes all at the same time. It's not making us more relaxed, not making us smarter, not making us healthier. It's time to cut it out. What I really do not like also about captions is it turns the visual experience, the intention of the director, the auteur, if you think of directors that way, the emotional components of a movie, a great movie, and it turns it into an intellectual. Reading is an intellectual exercise. Listening and watching, I find as much more of an emotional experience. When I want to read, I read. I read a book. When I want to consume the visual, luxurious experience, the visual experience, the tonal, the music, the sound of dialogue, I want to be able to focus on that. But if there is a scene, conflict between two people or romance between two people, I don't want to be looking down here reading the text. I find it incredibly distracting. And there's sometimes arguments in my household of are we going to have captions on captions or off? I. I really do not like it. Now here I'm going to offend even more people. When I'm watching a show like the Squid Games, which is a great Korean production, I do in fact listen to dubbing. There are purists who say, oh, how dare you? You should never consume any movie. It that's not in the language of what the actors are doing. I disagree. If I want to read, I read a book. If I want to watch a movie, I want to be looking at the whole screen. I don't want to be distracted to the bottom 5% of the text. And reading to me, it's not relaxing at all. Okay, final comments coming in from Muhammad. I like you because simply, you're authentic. Well, I try to be. Now, everybody is phony at some level. Like I'm here dressed professionally for you. If I stood up, you'd see I'm barefooted, I'm wearing shorts, I am wearing pants, but I'm wearing shorts. So I do try to be authentic and give it to you straight as I see it. But everyone does occasionally behave differently around different audiences. How we speak to our best friends over our favorite beverage while we're watching our favorite spot sporting event is different than how we talk to our grandparents at a funeral. It's just different. Doesn't mean we're not authentic. But Muhammad, I appreciate you joining me and I authentically really want to thank you and thank everyone for spending time with me today. If you're watching on YouTube or any of the social media platforms or on TikTok, thank you. If you're listening on itunes or on any, any podcast platform, thanks for doing so. Please leave a review. Thanks so much. I'll see you tomorrow.