foreign

[Music]

what's up everybody it's Josh from offer

of all coming to you with another

episode of the affiliate marketing show

you know we only have the most special

guests on the show as well as the best

co-hosts we have Adam Young from ringba

the CEO of rainbow we have Harrison

geverts and we also have Jason akatif

from a4d Jason I said that correctly

right active yeah that was perfect all

right cool I always get confused zakata

if it's active but I'm pretty sure from

our last episode I got that nailed down

so before we jump into anything today

our super annoying legal department is

making me read this disclaimer and I am

so annoyed that I have to do it but I

have to do it so I'm just gonna get that

out of the way the information presented

in this podcast is for General

informational purposes only and is not

intended as legal advice advice in

general

and is not meant as any kind of

recommendation or any type of service

offering the information discussed may

not be applicable to your specific

situation and should not be relied upon

as a substitute for obtaining legal

advice from a qualified attorney the

podcast will be discussing the legal

implications of a company going out of

business and potentially not paying

their Partners Please be aware that the

CEO of the company we will discuss has

previously sued individuals for

defamation and any statements made about

the company or its leadership should be

carefully considered before being shared

all statements made on this podcast are

based on publicly available information

that may not be accurate or truthful and

should not be taken as such by listening

to this podcast you acknowledge that you

understand and agree to this disclaimer

if you have any legal concerns it is

strongly recommended that you seek the

advice of a qualified attorney in short

we're Hooligans and you shouldn't listen

to anything that we say with that being

said Jason I know you were just in

Europe can you tell us about where you

went where some

where would you go what were some of the

highlights tell us about you get a

longer legal disclaimer listen I just I

just read what I'm giving

it

yeah I uh I was over in Europe uh was it

London for the holidays if nobody if

anybody's never been to London during

the holidays is probably one of the most

magical places on Earth uh they just

deck everything out uh with Christmas

stuff everywhere the whole city the

streets every restaurant you go into

every hotel is really really amazing uh

so visited some friends there and then

uh popped over to Stockholm I have some

friends over there they do a Christmas

it's called Christmas table which is uh

like a Christmas dinner amongst friends

that I go to uh or have been going to

annually

um and then uh some of you know we build

super Yachts over in Croatia luxury

sailor knots

we have

the second one in production we just

signed the contract word to buy the

steel because we buy the steel out of

Ukraine I believe or Russia one of those

but um

it's quite the difference

it's hard to keep track of these things

uh I think it's Ukraine actually but uh

they just about have it all fabricated

up so super cool it's 100 and this one's

160 feet long

um I don't I don't know all the

dimensions but uh it's uh over over

there seeing all the metal fabrication

and how they build it and stuff is was

super fun so went over to Croatian did

that and then they're going to be

launching that in February and should be

uh have all the finishings on the inside

done in June at some point so it was

over there just doing a quick tour of

that and then back here in Lake Tahoe

now for the holidays

so listen kids you too can be a Russian

oligarch with your internet money it's

only a matter of time

just Source the steel you know

yeah I feel like we could have a whole

entire episode talking about the yacht

production but that sounds awesome and I

want to welcome you back to the show

thanks for being a repeat guest the

first repeat guest of this new uh

rollout we're doing

um we're very happy to have you on here

and with that let's jump right into the

topic of our main discussion today

Health IQ closing Adam I know you did a

bunch of research on this so I'm just

going to pass it over to you if you

could give us a review on the situation

up front

yeah absolutely and so the reason this

is important to me is I have received

the numerous amount of phone calls like

from a whole bunch of our clients and

they are very concerned about not

getting paid due to health IQ uh

supposedly shutting down there's there's

no real news about what's actually going

on out there but we have quite a few

customers that are owed tens of millions

of dollars in receivables and they do

not believe that they're gonna get it

um and so I I dove into this and I

wanted to do a little bit of research

about health IQ and what some of their

employees were saying and then once I

dove in I fell real far down the rabbit

hole and so Health IQ was founded in

2014 by a group of startup guys and

their resumes are absolutely spectacular

you couldn't invent a better group of

Silicon Valley startup veterans to start

a company over time they raised 136.5

million dollars some of their investors

include Andreessen Horowitz Foundation

Capital CRV and a bunch of other tier

one firms it's essentially like the

dream team of investors

and they started the business from what

I can tell uh on their original website

uh making an app where you just tracked

how healthy you were and I think their

goal was to really Target an audience of

people who were active and already

healthy

um and the goal with that obviously

being if you can find healthy people you

can Market specific products and

services to them so I think the initial

iteration of this was to get a bunch of

users on their app and start to segment

the users by data and then figure out a

product Market fit for what they can

sell to those users

now over time they did add products and

services in they started with life

insurance and then they expanded from

life to Auto and Medicare

um and I believe disability based on

some of the the websites that I reviewed

and then around April of 2022 they cut

everything to solely focus on Medicare

and they changed their motto to

Precision Medicare and their goal based

on their website is
um you know I I hear I'll just I'll just

read it and so the CEO says I began to

wonder why all patients don't receive

this level of precision medicine why

doesn't everyone get a standard of care

personalized to them

our one-size-fits-all approach to

Medicine just isn't right

and what health IQ will do is uh if it's

a success is actually improving the

lives

and making people healthier and so it's

a great motto uh great Mission make

people healthier I think that it fits

the perfect Narrative of what you would

need to do to raise 136.5 million

dollars from tier one VC firms however

that is not what really played out

so I reviewed a ton of Glassdoor reviews

a whole bunch of indeed reviews trust

pilot reviews Better Business Bureau

reviews I looked at whatever information

was available on the internet and what

happened this year as far as I can tell

is they had a massive turnover of

operations folks and VP level leadership

because for whatever reason those people

couldn't get integrated into their

process and they massively scaled the

number of agents that were actually

taking Medicare calls it also seems like

they had a ton of technical issues they

brought on a new CTO earlier this year

likely to try and resolve a bunch of

those issues but it doesn't seem to have

made an impact at all

and so according to our clients who I

spoke with the account managers at

Health IQ were just hammering them right

up until the end of AEP to send more

volume literally up until the last

minute to send as much volume as they

could

and then the moment AEP was over well

agents were still on the phone According

to some of these reviews they pulled

hundreds of people maybe even a thousand

I'm not sure on the exact count into a

zoom call and terminated the employees

while agents were still selling on the

phone and then locked them all out of

their systems one of the quotes is they

invited us into a meeting to

congratulate us on our great work and 30

minutes later they logged me out I was

logged out of all my applications uh no

letter no email they didn't have the

decency to even send a note absolutely

no warning at all
another uh another quote about this

situation is they fired hundreds of

agents in a group Zoom meeting after

assuring all of us prior to AEP that

they would not be doing that I'm

seriously considering changing careers

entirely working here has kind of ruined

Medicare sales for me run and so these

aren't egregious reviews these are just

the ones telling us what happened and so

from what I can gather last year they

did a decent amount of outbounds there

are a few bad reviews related to

outbound and tcpa related things they

had a few tcpa related lawsuits and then

this year if you dig into the trust

pilot reviews which you start to see is

uh an escalating amount of consumer

complaints about uh outbound dialing uh

calling their phone 10 20 times not

being removed from lists it just seemed

like they were going extremely hard on

the outbound based on the reviews and

the Cadence of those reviews continued

to go up as they got towards the end of

AEP so it seems based on this

information that management was pushing

uh the agents to make more outbound

calls

and then some of the reviews from the

employees basically spell this out and

and kind of uh a crazy way and so here's

here's one of those quote they lied

during recruiting promised inbound calls

only promised an average of six thousand

dollars a month now all we do is

outbound garbage calls never get

enrollments if you manage to get a sale

to get into better leads then the

quality assurance team is extremely hard

on you and will find problems and get

you dropped back down to garbage leads

they lie to get you in but if they quit

if you quit they hold your appointments

for a year and also have you sign a

one-year non-compete agreement they

screw you over extremely hard hundreds

of Agents were hired with false promises

and are absolutely miserable earning

half of what they were promised and

doing hundreds of outbound calls a day

another former employee goes on to State

quote this place is an is the absolute

worst company I've ever worked for they

lie to you to get you to sign the

paperwork to be hired and then it was

literally just one horrible thing after

another I'd have to publish a short

novel to explain all of the horrible

things this company did to its employees

then without any warning whatsoever they

laid off hundreds of people the day

after AEP ended then not even a full

week later they laid off everyone citing

financing fell through due to high

interest rates these folks break

countless federal laws that's from the

review that's not me management is

horrible and toxic if they hadn't just

shut down entirely or so we were told I

literally tell you to uh take a job in

fast food or retail and it would be less

horrible there are no words for how

terrible of an experience working for

this company was I had to put on and I

had to be put on anxiety medication and

I've never had anxiety issues I mean

look I don't even know what to say about

this these were there are so many of

these reviews

um that you know to say that if there's

smoke there's fire I mean that's an

understatement in this this situation I

mean in October of 22 someone stated on

Glassdoor that they trick you into cold

calling and then a health IQ team member

replies thank you for your comments we

do not trick our sales agents into cold

calling we are an outbound call center

and then you read the rest of these

views uh reviews and it gets it gets

absolutely uh crazy and so during AEP

according to these reviews they were uh

forcing the sales agents to work 14-hour

days seven days a week I read this

through numerous reviews they were

monitoring apparently all of the time

agents were on the phone and they only

got 30 minutes for lunch and anytime

they took a break if the break went too

long uh they would dock their

performance against it and so it it

feels to me like they were trying to

save money by not buying high quality

inbound calls or leads and they were

just trying to put as many agents as

possible on outbound Legacy leads or as

some of these reviews call it Second

Chance leads so that you know the

commission-based salespeople could like

grind out these lists and hopefully make

some uh high margin sales for

the company the craziest part about all

of this though is you know they raised

so many funds and they had all these

technical people and there is a whole

slew of reviews talking about the

technical issues preventing sales

productivity uh one goes on to say their

systems are garbage their software can't

keep up their phone system is terrible

all day long the help desk chat is full

of people who have dropped calls can't

hear the callers callers can't hear them

the system is malfunctioning plans not

showing up can't complete enrollment due

to system crashes and so on and so forth

and then goes on to say it it's a

nightmare

um agents are saying you have no way to

track your calls or sales in a reliable

way know how much money you were making

based on the policies uh they weren't

able to see their commission reports or

understand how much they were making off

of the sales uh in a and apparently it

it

was one of the most toxic work

environments that a lot of these

employees could have ever imagined and

um

I mean it's it's pretty tragic I I feel

for these agents what's amazing is on

trustpilot a lot of these agents are

called up by name with five star reviews

from consumers stating that the agents

really truly cared about their needs and

tried their best to to help them and I

think that's indicative of having solid

Medicare agents but the management

processes behind them led to obviously a

major failure

in in the business and you know uh I'll

finish I'll finish with this quote uh

from a customer or from an agent they

they finalize their review with quote

feels like you're in jail in your own

home quote and I think that is um that's

that's pretty telling about uh about the

practices over there and you know

unfortunately the result is that a lot

of their publishing Partners uh will not

get paid or may not get paid I'm I'm

aware of uh I'm aware of legal action

that's being taken and and the numbers

are unfortunately uh astronomical and so

this is kind of the dark side of

Medicare and if you if you get a huge

cap with a single company and you're not

Diversified uh you can kind of end up in

this situation like a lot of the

customers uh of ringbos that I spoke to

this week and so it's just a really

unfortunate tragic situation

um and so Jason I know you've had to

deal with creditors in the past and in

similar situations to this can you give

me your thoughts and and maybe add some

color on you know how these situations

play out

yeah

um

the one word that comes to mind and most

of this is greed

and

I think the partners will fault

sometimes as as much as the the people

that are not paying their bills right

um

I've been in this business a long time

I've seen a lot of people not get paid

I've probably not been paid to the tune

of five million dollars over the last

whatever uh

15 or 20 years that I've been in the

business

um one of the first real wins I had was

a company called savings.com on

Commission Junction

I'd worked really hard for

about a year and then in month 13 I had

figured out some uh some blogging

strategies in order to do really well in

mortgage

and

I think I did maybe 125 000 in Revenue

in month 13. you know keep in mind every

month before that was like 2000 and they

waited till the very last day

and told me that I wasn't going to get

paid so that was my indoctrination into

the affiliate world and there's a lot of

there's a lot of Bad actors out there

you know a lot of times Affiliates uh

think that oh I'm gonna go direct to The

Advertiser and not work with the network

and I'm going to make more money and you

know I just always advise everybody you

know work some with the networks because

you'll always get paid work some directs

you know don't get too greedy you know

there's always

uh opportunities even on the merchant

side where it's like oh we want more of

that traffic I'm like are you sure you

want more of that traffic like you know

maybe we should wait a little while and

understand the quality that's going to

come in on this stuff but you know a lot

of people you know they see they see the

dollar signs they push the greed

and they wind up in in situations like

this

um I anybody that's been in Medicare

you know and I'm I'm not a huge Medicare

company you know we we've done some of

it but it wasn't like the biggest thing

we've done you know there was I think

there was many warnings about the

situation that was going on with

Medicare that you talked about in the

beginning and the lifetime value of the

customers and them not really

understanding you know always always be

cautious if uh you know there's certain

red flags that go up uh so you're you're

hearing these things but everybody's

saying everything's fine don't worry

about it just send traffic

and then if that you're hearing some of

those rumors and in addition you've got

a sales rep telling you to push as much

volume as possible as fast as you can

that should be an even bigger red flag

for you in my opinion uh you know at the

end of the day and you know what we've

seen in certain industries before

probably what will happen here as well

is

the network even the networks won't get

paid if they're like a heavy Medicare

Network and all of a sudden they don't

get paid 15 million dollars you know

they're probably going to go bankrupt uh

themselves and even some of the networks

aren't going to be paid so if you're

working with a network just make sure

that that network is Diversified across

verticals and you know they've they've

got plenty of money in the bank as as a

partnership uh as well

um you know when I started in affiliate

marketing the biggest networks were

Hydra media copiac CX digital and

azoogle right like these were these were

the ten thousand pound gorillas in the

room none of them didn't exist anymore I

lost money on all of those yeah yeah

right uh all of them extended credit

where they you know over I remember

there was a time I was talking to the

owner of kopiak and there's a merchant

that hadn't paid some other companies

and it we were at leedscon in Vegas and

I'm like hey you know I see you guys

running these guys really really hard

they haven't paid all these other

networks

um you know are you concerned about that

they're like oh don't worry about it

I've got a good relationship with

whoever and you know ultimately they

they wound up going bankrupt and out of

business so you know just be be cautious

uh on on what you're doing don't put too

many eggs in one basket try and

diversify your Partnerships try and

diversify some direct if you're an

affiliate you know some direct Merchants

some affiliate Network affiliate Network

typically is going to be a buffer for

you so even if the Direct Merchant

doesn't pay you're not gonna you know

lose everything so we're constantly

looking at

at that another thing that we do as a

company is as we grow credit terms with

a partner we look at how much money

we've made with that partner and we get

more comfortable giving them more credit

after we already have profitability in

the bank with that with that partner

that's just something we've done uh as a

company so you know maybe we give them

30 000 in credit to start then you know

maybe we make 50 000 with them we move

that line up to a hundred thousand right

so now we're at the end of the day we're

never going to lose that much money you

know with that with that partnership and

that you know that grows as as time goes

on so that's my my two cents there

so I want to jump in here what do you

guys think

the Publishers should be doing to try

and recoup their losses in this

situation because I know

they're right so

yeah Jason what do you think man nothing

there's absolutely nothing they can do

you know they can they could sue they

could win they'll wind up in a pool of

people to be paid they'll get Pennies on

the dollar that waste more time in

lawsuits trying to collect the money

from the ghost company that it winds up

to be like I would just focus on where

do you go from here and then how do you

you know get back in the game I was

gonna say it's it's going to be hard for

Publishers or anyone that's owed money

for this company I mean they raised like

136 million dollars so the VCS are going

to be considered secured creditors I

would assume everyone that's in

marketing you know receivable on that

balance sheet is is unsecured so they're

at the bottom of the line

it depends as well like in a credit

stack you know it depends on if their

Equity Partners or debt Partners right

so you've got Equity partners are

actually who get paid last of everybody

so then you've got your secure debt

partners that have uh what is it secs CC

whatever it is the bank filings like a

UCC or whatever yeah that's the word I'm

looking for UCC filing so those are the

most secure and going to get paid out

first before everybody else so my guess

is if there's any cash left in this

business at the end of the day they

probably have some Bank lines of credit

they're like hey we raised 130 through

all these Venture Capital well guess

what Silicon Valley Bank will come in

they'll give them UCC filed lines of

credit maybe they have 10 20 million

dollars lines of credit with Silicon

Valley Bank or one of those Partners

which oftentimes do not go when they say

we've raised 130 million that that's

separate right that's convention

additional debt through a conventional

bank that most people don't call that as

money raised

so those people are going to get paid

first then unsecured creditors after

that then anybody that had Equity or

stock in the company would potentially

get what was left there there will be

nothing here there will be nothing here

and you know the UCC people will

probably get some pennies on the dollar

for what's actually there it's it's uh

you know lick your wounds uh but don't

waste another minutes thought on I'm

going to collect this money figure out

what do you do from here and what do you

do going forward to you know as your

next steps is all you can do

yeah Adam in this situation yeah Jason

in this situation I think it's

interesting because the Medicare

policies still have an LTV they were

still written and they still have a

value and they haven't made any

announcements about going bankrupt and

going through a liquidation process like

you were talking about and this is pure

speculation

um but do you see a world where they

might be thinking we have the policies

we let all our employees go maybe those

policies LTV are worth some type of

money and instead of going bankrupt we

just don't pay all the Media Partners

and then try and negotiate uh

settlements on all of those invoices and

turn you know I don't know 30 40 million

in debt into nine or whatever it is like

I'm just making up numbers I don't know

how much debt they actually have

um and then liquidate the policies and

maybe walk with something versus BK

thank you

uh if I again I don't you know I don't

know enough about the policy and the

policy value I mean obviously there's an

asset class that's sitting there of of

some value

um

you know I've I've seen people you know

play all kinds of games and you know not

not pay stuff and negotiate it out and

then go try and rebuild relationships

especially in this world right it's like

it's our name now wait didn't you used

to be these people and everybody that

did that thing knew that but then they

go try and find new Partnerships uh to

do stuff with but

honestly I wouldn't I wouldn't sit

around hoping that that you're gonna get

paid if the real winners are the lawyers

in all of these messes unfortunately I

mean it's it's something you know if

there's some money there at the end of

the day

okay but like I would not live my life

in any way shape or form thinking that

that was gonna come in

yes unfortunate painful situation I

think it's going to be a really good

learning experience for folks in the

space

um and also something we talked about at

uh the geek out Mastermind where I

actually hung out with some of your team

members Jason Ian Fernando who does

media buying for you and Matt stancell I

had some amazing conversations with

these guys about leadership and and

media buying but something else we

talked about was ensuring the

receivables

with a company like uh Euler Hermes

which is now uh a lion's uh trade

insurance and so I I don't think that

people in our industry really take risk

mitigation seriously enough you know I

think a lot of them start out as media

buyers or Affiliates and then try and

move forward throughout that progression

of business and they're not thinking

about risk mitigation do you guys engage

in any receivable financing or have a

specific formula of risk mitigation

yeah I was talking I think you popped

offline there for a second but as a

great sorry yeah yeah we don't have any

insurance stuff that we've we've gone

through we're just uh have been working

through the process but we we go through

you know in order to do it you've got to

put everybody through a credit uh

evaluation and stuff like that so we're

starting that process but we have so

many clients that we would have to go

back and do that for we're starting it

on on stuff going forward so we can

start to be prepared for that but it's

also you know you have one default like

this you have a of a major company and

people not pay their bills then all the

insurers start to look at that and go

whoa the premiums are going to go up you

know 200 percent if you want to be if

you want to play in this space

um so uh what I was talking about before

some of what we do and it's hard with

AAP and how that all that industry works

and this you know the rapid scaling and

then scaling up and scaling down but uh

we typically with most new partners you

know we'll give them 10 15 000 in credit

as long as they have a good history

um and then as we you know maybe make uh

25 or 30 000 in in net profit or or

gross profit whatever on that then we'll

extend their credit look more where we

feel like okay we've made enough that if

something goes awry at some point in

time you know we've made enough in our

in our hopper in order to to support

that

um

you know back in the back in the

supplement days you know I was I was

that guy right I worked through networks

and with all my payments were insured

and then I went direct to Merchants and

then wound up not getting paid four

million dollars uh the uh point in time

I think it was 2010 uh you know

I had maybe a hundred grand in the bank

ninety thousand something like that in

our overhead was 130 000 a month and I

had to cut off all my Merchants because

they I just didn't get paid four million

dollars across like seven different

merchants and

um luckily you know I'm a scrappy

affiliate guy

um oh gosh who was it uh to insure for

Less was getting sold to all web leads

the Emoji names yeah yeah they wanted

whatever leads that they would take

because it was going to increase the

value of the transaction so and they

knew by the time those policies came

through and those leads settled out you

know they were forecasted on these leads

are going to come in they're going to be

worth X

um so I had a partner named Phil and you

know Phil started making us 10 15 000 a

day and and profit run in auto insurance

leads that basically carry the company

I'm still good friends with Phil to this

day but carried the company through it

it probably would have gone bankrupt at

that point I had a couple of experiences

like that in my life but uh yeah you do

you got to be you got to be careful with

with credit that's all I can say I I

think back in the day we had some of the

same Nutra companies just

hard over and over again yeah

Jason you just taught me why two insure

for Less was willing to guarantee me a

per click price there you go

I was like you guys shouldn't do that

they're like it's fine dollar fifty or

two dollars a click let's go yeah yeah

yeah I remember the old email submit

days for for auto insurance too where

they put the CPC speeds on the back of

them that was some good times sure hits

back end and uh there was like a

timeshare offer that paid like twenty

dollars on like a name and an email and

a phone number I didn't get paid for

those

yeah so just bring in the health IQ

stuff kind of to a close here because I

know we got a few other things we want

to touch on I think we could all or have

agreed and can all agree it definitely

has something to do with leadership

right

um as with a lot of things in this

industry they all come from the top so I

wanted to also revisit the geek out that

Adam mentioned um he told me he met with

your team Ian Fernando and Matt Stancil

and he said that he had a lot of good

talks about leadership so Jason I wanted

to ask you specifically if you can talk

about leadership to you how you look at

it when you're building your A for D

team and how it played a part in

creating the brand that you have being

one of the most recognizable in the

industry that we're in

sure first thing I'm going to start out

is uh I was not a great leader for for a

long time

um you know I was uh

I was your standard affiliate right

um get out of my way I can do it better

than everybody else uh I remember in the

early days of running the network I'd

bring uh you know affiliate managers in

and I give them people and then they

wouldn't do a good job and then I'd pick

up the phone and close the business

right in front of them and make them

feel like right like yeah so many

so many bad things

um and

for for many years uh you know just from

a macro level let's let's talk about

this right so you have like your

solopreneur right that's you as an

affiliate working out of your house

hacking stuff together maybe you find a

partner and you guys hack stuff together

or whatever right and then all of a

sudden you're like wow there's more

opportunity than what I have hours in

the day and you become what I call a

solopreneur with helpers so that's no

nobody in between just hey I need

somebody to make these ads for me or I

need somebody to write this little bit

of code in order to get stuff done so

you can improve your your throughput or

your efficiencies and your your system a

little bit more and that's not to me

that's not a leader you're not a leader

there right

um

and then uh at some point in time you're

like wow the opportunity is is still

much greater that you know I can't do

this and I I operated at that

solopreneur with helpers up until

probably about 2010 and uh you know we

could get to maybe 20 people Max inside

of the company and then you lose that

direct touch with with everybody that's

involved and they feel uh like you know

Jason doesn't understand me anymore or

whatever right it's just you and these

and these people and even that I don't

equate that to a leader

um I had a good conversation with Bowski

if you guys know him I'm sure some

people on this podcast do and you know

he's kind of at that stage and uh some

other people are at that stage and it's

like if you want to really grow to that

next level level company you have to

understand you know how do you hire and

manage and work with leadership

uh inside of inside of your organization

this is people that understand how to

hire uh and manage and and train teams

not just

I'm going to tell them what to do and

then they're gonna go figure out how to

do it and you know I think one of the

key things with leadership is it it

takes a long time to learn and you know

us as uh younger Affiliates and and I'm

sure your your people that are in the 20

their 20s you know uh you know they're

thinking oh I I can be this leader but

it just it really takes a lot of time

with working with people to understand

how to put the systems in place and and

and set the expectations around them and

you know I think the thing that's that's

made a for D what it what it is today is

some of the great leaders that we have

in inside of our organization uh Ian

Fernando he really focuses uh on running

the network piece of the business Sony

for D we have uh our Mass tour division

which does a lot of the legal Legion

we've got to meet full media buying

division where we buy for internal

products as well as third party stuff uh

that's fairly uh getting fairly large I

think we're 20 people in that now uh and

then we have the network division which

is our Legacy that's been around since

2008.
um and you know Matt Matt and I you know

and and and by the way

um I think it's really important you

know and you probably have heard this

before but if you're going to hire a

great leader into your business

um

you know you've got to learn from them

you know I never had the

opportunity and experience to go work

for company and work under a great

leader I just I was a I was a waiter

then I was a speaker for Tony Robbins on

the road uh then I sold franchises and

worked with a good friends of mine

Alonso and he kind of taught me sales in

the franchise business but I never

really worked with a great leader that

that ran great teams so

um for me

you know I think a lot of people that

would be in my same situation you know

we look at people and we judge people

based on who we are right and we look at

somebody you know I may look at Adam or

I may look at Harrison and go oh okay

these guys are good leaders because they

are like me

and you know I think there's uh I think

there's a really important piece of

understanding how to hire leadership uh

in the sense that they uh what's the

word I'm looking for they they're the

opposite of you right they're they're

good at one thing there's a great book

that that uh Matt stansel had me read uh

when he first came to work for me and

I'm I'm wandering here a little bit but

I think it's all important

um there's a book called Rocket Fuel

have you guys read rocket fuel

no I have not I have not read it sorry

we have we're muting ourselves so we

don't talk over yeah we're all just

entranced in this uh this information

you're providing us yeah what about the

book though so Rocket Fuel is one of the

books in the series for Eos which is the

uh entrepreneurial operating system we

run inside of a4d by the way I could

talk about this for like 10 hours but

um I would highly encourage anybody

that's an affiliate an affiliate mindset

to read the book Rocket Fuel and the

basics of the book Rocket Fuel say okay

there's two type uh every business

should have two people at the top of it

uh one of those is a kind of a Visionary

person or they're a Visionary they see

the future uh they figure out how to put

together I would put both Harrison and

Adam in the bucket of visionary right

you guys see the future you're putting

the pieces together

um then the other the their counterpart

then this counterpart is super super

important is called an integrator and an

integrator is your operational person so

typically your Visionary is mostly

externally focused so you understand the

marketplace the people how to put deals

together Business Development all that

kind of stuff your integrator is

internally focused so they're like how

do we get the best people in here how do

we have the best systems how do we have

operational efficiency what are the

technology platforms that we should be

running on to make us more efficient if

we have multiple departments how do

those uh we call it Ops and comms how

does that communication cross-department

work right if you have two separate

leaderships in each of your departments

and they have differing objectives but

they have to work together how do you

make sure that all that stuff is in

alignment this is your integrated role

inside of the business there

they're often very

um type A people where everything is

like has its place like I didn't even

have a calendar until two years ago

everything for me was like uh just text

me before you want me to get on the call

right like I didn't I didn't even write

a calendar

I'm like a year into having a calendar I

I feel yeah

well for me it was like I don't want

stuff on my calendar because if for some

reason there's an opportunity and I get

in a conversation with Adam and we get

into it deep and we want to talk for two

hours about stuff over coffee like I

don't want to feel obligated that I've

got to go get on a meeting because the

depth of that conversation and where

that might go is is super super

important to my Visionary role that I

live inside of the business right

um and where an integrator would say hey

everybody needs attention they all need

to have goals they all need to have the

stuff and I'm like yeah they'll figure

it out right like early days of aprily

I used to be like just go in that back

room there's a bunch of people that know

what that what to do with they'll teach

you how to do it

no nothing we'll give you a login to the

system in a phone right like that's

that's kind of how it worked but this

you know this integrator Visionary uh

piece and and Matt stansel who you who

you described or were talking to was my

initial integrator uh I moved him to the

president of a4d now

um because he's really extraordinarily

good at being externally focused as well

but Matt is like my role in what is

needed is here is for me to be an

integrator

now we're I think 70 employees now

something like that over all the all the

businesses

um and so we brought another fellow in

that came out of uh product uh product

building in Tech so it was a and then he

did project management then he did EOS

Consulting and rollout in businesses

over the last seven years so he's very

technically minded inputs outputs very

much efficiency systems all the trains

running on time and he's becoming more

uh of that technical integrator side

where Matt is more focused on developing

new business for us uh mergers and

Acquisitions and and buying companies

and so forth so

that's awesome and you know the

conversation I had with Matt was great

the first thing he did was challenge my

position

and on where I was and I was surprised

by that most people are not willing to

do that with me and so it immediately

turned in a fantastic conversation and I

was unwilling to speak to anybody else

at that period of time and uh you know

the next morning I reconvened with him

and I thanked him for the conversation

and I I thought it was really important

I had a hard time sleeping you know I

really uh thought a lot about what he

had said and he also said the same thing

he was like man that conversation we had

I was thinking about it all night and my

head hit the pillow I was thinking about

leadership

and so I think these types of things are

not something that people in our

industry discuss enough Jason like you

know I remember early days when I met

you it was on the phone you're in an

airport we were slinging singles net

leads like our Focus was so different

than what it is today

and we have to literally change entirely

into a new human being to it to inspire

others and train others and so

um I just wanted I just wanted to thank

you uh for the opportunity uh in sending

Matt to that because him challenging me

was a unique experience for me and I I

liked it a lot and I think you just

brought it back full circle you know we

have at ringbo we have 46 employees and

we do not have a head of operations or

uh an integrator I think we do on our

technical side right like our CTO is an

excellent leader and he builds great

technical teams and and whatever but you

know just listening to you talk I had

some Revelations of my own where I

literally like visualized my time being

pulled in directions away from vision

and the marketing and what I'm truly

good at

um and then I I spend my time doing

operational things and trying to improve

systems where I'm in excellent systems

designer and Problem Solver it's not

it's not my number one skill and so I'm

like doing these things that I probably

Adam here's a little here's how I think

about that right like I'm still very

involved in strategy for optimizing and

building the systems

but that they're rolled out on time and

efficiently

I am not responsible for at all because

like that is that is not where I'm good

at right like be you know I I often talk

where where people get confused is like

manager leader

these are very very different things

right manager is thinking about their

staff members thinking about their

journey and where they need to go in the

in the business where who they want to

become what their deliverables and

timelines are and then having those

regular meetings right being a great

manager is about being consistent

um with your people right so they can

depend on you and they right like that's

the opposite of what I am I am not

anything right and it's just it's just

my nature but then I understood like hey

when I read Rocket Fuel I'm like wow

there's people that this is the life

that they love to live and they love

that consistency and they love the order

and they love all that stuff that I

really want nothing to nothing to do

with so

I already bought it on Audible great

now now I have to go buy it right now

damn it okay cool I suggested that this

book to so many people that come out of

the affiliate world and more

entrepreneurial Hustler type people

and almost every single time they're

like holy I understand myself and

my role now like I always thought I

needed to become good at this stuff so

I've been reading these books and trying

to be this thing that I that I'm just

not right

um there's another thing that you

brought up there when I think about the

journey from entrepreneur

to Executive leader

everything that makes you a great

entrepreneur hustle grind figure it out

push everything you know all that stuff

that makes you a great entrepreneur

actually makes you a very bad executive

because executives

are looking into the future trying to

figure out okay what is the next step

what are the timelines what is the plans

who are the people we need what are the

budgets that need to be put in place

they're everything that's not hustle and

Grimes is what takes you now to go plan

for this stuff is there but in most

businesses you know once you're at 70

employees if you're putting high

pressure for everybody to be

entrepreneur really entrepreneurial and

have that hustle and grind mentality

you're just not going to retain staff

right once you get to a small size

business it's about work-life balance

it's about consistency it's about how do

we get predictable results uh into the

future and then what is what is the next

step and the step after that first is

I'm gonna go figure it out and gonna go

work for 17 hours a day and take

adderall and Red Bull and yeah so do

whatever it takes in order to make it

happen none of us have done that Jason I

don't know

none of us have done that I have no idea

what you're talking about right now

because all that to say like if you want

to become a leader you need to you could

still have your entrepreneurial hustle

and grind roots and and whatnot but you

really need to grow as a as a person and

understand like how do I build something

into the future versus I'll figure it

out tomorrow so

I think that's a really important

message for Affiliates I think

Affiliates are some of the most

brilliant talented creative people that

I've ever met and I think that's why

I've never left the industry like I just

really love our people and now that I'm

older and a leader and run teams I see

them and I'm like oh man I wish these

people would just read a few leadership

books because there's so much potential

for them to build great meaningful

companies that can change the world and

I was literally on a call with some

clients right before this podcast

telling them the exact same things right

like we need to build systems and

processes and think about building

businesses and not being Affiliates and

that's really the next step and so

um yeah it's really cool to see your

progression another book I like to

recommend it really changed my

perspective on on how some of this stuff

works uh there's a book called the goal

and it's by this guy named Elijah gold

Rat and the goal is about this guy who

takes over this failing Factory and uh

the factory you know he's basically

going there to to shut it down and it's

a great story it's a really fun story to

read

um and he goes in and and gold Rat is a

is a I don't know he's whatever uh

consultant and and the guys like I think

I can turn this around and he kind of

goes over the story but it's really

about uh efficiency and law of

constraints and pipelines and just at a

very basic level right and it's like so

me now I think about my businesses as

factories the difference is our people

are the machines right so if you think

about a machine

um and uh it's making a let's say a

fender for a car and the the first is a

is a die cut right so cuts the piece and

then that piece goes into the next

machine and then it forms does the next

piece of the form well the thing is if

you don't have the right die cut to put

into the machine this next machine is

not going to work and most conflict I

find in business is between cross

Department right creative is getting

something for Creative makes something

gives it to coding and it's not codable

so that they get and then they get

frustrated over here and back and forth

so you know when I read that book it

really changed my perspective on what is

our what is all the you know the

production lines of our business what

are the inputs and outputs and then how

do we make sure that all those things

are defined well

um and obviously you're constantly

improving because the the business is

changing but the goal is another great

book if you if you've never read that

one it's a it's a great one to read

so touching on uh leadership I think you

guys both kind of mentioned this a

little bit I actually want to give this

one the Harrison

um

Harrison when you guys are hiring I know

you're involved with a lot of projects

what are like some of the main

characteristics in the people that

you're hiring to work with you to work

under you what do you think people are

focusing too much on when they're trying

to get the job and not focusing on

enough

I like to try to hang out with that

person in a non-interview environment to

see the actual human because when you

get in that interview kind of

environment it's like people become

robots and they just try to show you

what they think you want to see

but I think seeing that human element

really tells a lot about the potential

employee that they're going to be

um you know I think

I also like to ask them about how they

would lead a team even if they're not

being hired in a leadership role

um or you know something I like to ask

people is essentially like if you were

me how what would you look for position

right if you're if I'm the person hiring

for a job because

might take a little bit of pressing and

massaging but once the ego is kind of

the ego's Guard is put down you're gonna

learn

about how they're gonna work and how

they're going to you know Excel within

your organization at the same time I

like to ask how someone handles conflict

or disagreements or just tension within

a team because happens right it's

important to kind of make sure that

when you're dealing with the not so fun

stuff that we all have to deal with

business sometimes that that person is

not going to maybe go against the grain

of how the rest of the organization is

going to handle does that make sense

yeah 100 I'm actually curious for Jason

and Adam to chime in as well would you

guys agree with most of that or would

you add anything to it

um on the interview process it really is

going to depend on the level that we're

hiring at so we just hired

someone to lead our whole tort division

um you know very high level higher uh

30 hours I believe uh two or three plane

flights

you know before before we made that

decision

um

I'll speak specifically for for

leadership

uh you know obviously culture is part of

it

um I think you know probably Adam and

Harrison would agree with this like

we can't deal with non-entreneurial

minded people

so every leader inside of my business

yeah

at some point in time it doesn't matter

whether they succeeded or failed really

makes no difference at all right if you

take a great integrator and they built

their own business they probably were

not that great at sales and they

probably weren't that good at deal

making and business development that

doesn't mean that they're not a great

leader that just means the skill set

that they need in order to make that

business go or on the other side of

things you know that great Visionary

type leader you know maybe they did a

ton of you know brought in a ton of

business but they never built the

infrastructure in order to be able to

support the business and the business

ultimately failed because it pissed

everybody off so number one

understanding that that cultural piece

and like I said for us it's really

important

um it's really important for uh you know

to understand for us if they're if

they're entrepreneurial uh in that and

and again just depending on uh where

it's

go ahead

I was gonna say it's generally you know

people aren't comfortable when they talk

about their failures but I almost see it

as a plus if someone has some failure

within you know under that belt

um I've failed in business before and I

honestly use those lessons as as lessons

to do better not to fail another another

big thing for us now and when I look at

a leader when I'm hiring a high level

leader you know after reading Rocket

Fuel and really making it part of who I

am you know is this person an integrator

are they a Visionary and is this role an

integrator role or is it a divisionary

role so you know we have Ian is a an

amazing Visionary he's not really an

integrator right on the network side so

we go to some of our next thoughts on

who do we pair him with is who is that

great integrator because we're going to

get uh how do you do you know not one

plus one equals two but one plus one

equals three and if you compare those

two people together in the leadership of

each division uh that's really you know

important to look at as well

um

from a from a hiring process standpoint

I'm going to give you guys another book

it's called who

uh and it's by a guy named GH smart GH

smart is a recruiting agency

that recruits for all the very largest

private Equity firms they have a 90

success rate after a one-year uh

interview process with that uh with the

hiring manager uh not just are they

still here but how did they excel in

their role it is a very uh the who book

is a very tactical book on process to

take people through uh and how they

actually uh succeed in order to get that

outcome uh defining a scorecard for each

role defining kpis for each role uh

interview processes and and so forth so

Adam

yeah I mean I would agree with

everything you guys are saying in a

really big way at ringbo regardless of

the type of person that we're looking

for we actually interview for values

first not Talent or the skills required

for the role and I think that has been

incredibly valuable for us in scaling an

organization that works well

to that Adam can you speak a little more

yeah about what you when you say values

yeah absolutely I mean the values of our

organization you know we're a client

first organization we will do anything

we possibly can for our customers to be

successful it's our mission it's who we

are we're devoted to our customers and

so the first thing that we look for

regardless of role is is this person

going to be willing to be devoted to our

customers I don't care if it's our CTO

or a senior engineer or you know a UI

designer or a salesperson or whatever

like if they need to go help a customer

or learn from a customer or make

something for a customer they really

need to love doing that and some people

in engineering for instance they're like

I never want to talk to a customer I

don't want to do that and so we just we

won't hire anybody that doesn't meet our

value structures around that or

Integrity or you know how they handle

mistakes

um and these are the the things we

interview for because our organization

is super unique in that you know if

someone makes a mistake the first thing

they'll do is they'll tell everybody and

there's no penalty for a mistake at

ringba there's a penalty for hiding a

mistake not asking for help

um not doing right by the customers like

that will get you fired immediately

no questions you guys have core values

like published core values inside of

your business

we have core values that we share and

our recruiter uses but one of the things

we actually need to do is publish those

core values on our uh website you know

one of the things that some of our

leadership coaches and advisors have

told me and Matt and I even discussed

was the fact that we have these amazing

values and Mission and we live by them

but we don't profess them out

um to the the public and it's something

that we're working to get better at

we're making some changes now to do that

um

but yeah I think those values really

Define our success

that brought core values to us

um

I you know we work extremely actively to

integrate

core values into everything so if in if

somebody's going to get a promotion

inside of the business or they're going

to get a review we talk about how do

they illustrate poor values

um sometimes you know we talk about

culture fit so part of that for us is uh

through the interview process there we

have a bunch of open-ended questions

that revolve around our core values to

understand this person we don't want to

teach people these core values we want

people to come into the organization

that it's already just ingrained in who

they are

we have a hustler of the month that gets

uh every month you know we elect one two

three sometimes as many as three

Hustlers of the Month part of that

process is we do a survey that goes out

to everybody and they're allowed to vote

for people but they have to say what

core values did they elicit uh through

this last month that makes them you know

make making you suggest you can't

suggest them just because you like them

they how did they illustrate core values

uh that are in alignment with the

company that you're you're bringing them

up for so that does two things that that

reinforces every month that gets people

to think about the core values like oh

shoot I want to like this person okay I

need to go think about the core values

again so just many many things that we

integrate the core values as just part

of our meetings part of our HR processes

part of our hiring process and

integrating that stuff is made a massive

difference inside the business

yeah if you let one person into your

organization that doesn't share your

core values or you don't focus on those

core values it can turn into a talk

success pool real quick just like what

we discussed earlier on this call you

know I don't think those core values

existed at that organization in a way

that they had a buy-in from everyone at

the organization you know it happens

when you scale quickly it's hard but you

know for us those core values are the

difference between success in a

workplace where we want to work or we

don't right like and I don't want to

work with people that don't share my

values and I don't want to work with

people that that don't believe in our

mission and you know it's funny they

seem like cheesy corporate cliche sort

of things but they're they're not it's

what defines the heart and soul of an

organization and if you don't have a

healthy heart and soul that your

organization your customers are going to

know immediately you're not going to

grow you're not going to scale you're

not not going to recruit the best talent

you possibly can and so you know like

these things are the lifeblood of an

organization and they need to be taken

really seriously I appreciate uh the way

you guys um do that that's really cool

you know back to the comment on smaller

team versus bigger team you know if you

emboss I mean our core values are a lot

of just what I embody as a human right

what I collaboration is super important

for us like whether we're collaborating

with Partners or collaborating

internally it's you know I'm always on

the same side of the table as you I'm

never on the opposite side right like

that's super important for us but as you

get more and more people inside of the

organization when you're small it's

really easy to oh that's just who Jason

is we get him he just operates that way

but as you hire more leadership in and

more people and there's more layers like

how do you not lose that embodiment of

you know what you believe the

organization is because it's very easy

that you don't have that and it's not

strong that all of a sudden you hire one

leader in they see things differently

they're not in alignment and then

everybody that reports to them sees

things differently and then you've got

here as well right and then all of a

sudden the whole organization is out of

alignment yes Josh

thank you Jason so how do you not lose

sorry for those listening I raised my

hand you know I'm trying to be polite

um how do you not lose those core values

because I know you said you got 70

people under you and the team right now

so is there any specific things that you

focused on to make sure those values you

know maintain the same importance that

they had from the very beginning

uh yeah I mean the hiring leader the

leader process of of hiring those

leaders right like like again I'm a

Visionary but then I'm we're hiring an

integrator we're obviously going to be

very different people

um but you know is those those core

values so that entrepreneurial spirit is

just part of who we are as an

organization

um you know another thing for us so in

in that same vein uh you know some

people will go and they'll be like Oh

I'm going to hire this person out of

this company they they managed you know

they were at a Lending Tree and they

managed a thousand people well guess

what if if they have a 20-person team or

a 10 person team and their budgets

aren't the same they're probably not

going to be very good at running that

organization so another just another

really really key piece I find uh to

hiring leadership is where are you at

now and then do they know how the

sausage is made to get to where you want

to go at least as the next step because

I see people fail at hiring leaders all

the time where they're like go higher

out of some big name company this person

ran 300 person team and then they bring

them in and they give them a 10-person

team in a small budget and they and they

ultimately fail and they then you know

hopefully they iterate they reflect and

iterate why that didn't work and how do

you do it the next time

um you know but that's just another

little tidbit and key piece of

information but you know like I was

saying before just integrating those

core value pieces so we have a monthly

meeting that's all hands right so uh

what are we doing in HR that is about

these core values and uh everything from

our How We Do charity we have programs

inside of the business that correlate to

our core values uh how do we do

promotions that relates to the core

values so people understand like I need

to embody these things you know there's

another really great piece that core

value referring to the table just on

another side note is

uh this as the organization gets bigger

this allows people to make decisions so

you know they understand so uh one of

our core values uh relates to you know

everything it has to be measurable right

so it's not about a feeling it's all

about measurability so you know a call

center rep uh when we were doing

e-commerce they get five phone calls in

a row about a product that had a

malfunction

and that now they see from their data

perspective and they're starting to feel

like oh we've got a major product

problem but what they didn't realize is

there's another 10 000 phone calls that

happened and they just happened to get

this small sub segment of people that

had the same problem so you know rather

than going to an emotional state you

know understanding okay what is the what

is the metrics around this and then how

do we make sure that you know uh or I'm

sure it ringed by you guys some customer

had a problem and maybe two people had

the same problem I mean you know all of

a sudden it's a fire but it's not really

a fire maybe they just both

configuration so just making all the

data everybody has all the data uh in

order to uh understand as much as

possible that things aren't buyers and

don't then don't go run around the

office telling everybody that it's a

fire when it's not really a fire because

all that does is create create problems

we don't have an office anymore but I

guess message everybody on slack or

Skype or or whatever that might be but

it you know just to close your question

there Josh it's it's really just how do

you integrate those core values into

every piece of the business and then how

do you consistently remind everybody at

every piece of the business that this is

what matters to us
yeah I wanted to uh first of all thanks

for answering that that was awesome I

wanted to touch on one more thing here

before we let you go because I know

we're pushing an hour right now so this

has been a great episode but I'm gonna

say something and I want you to tell me

if you agree or disagree with it okay

is the metaverse

waste of time

yes okay can you expand on why yeah that

was a quote that was a quote from

nice designs an understatement I

don't know that was a quote from the CEO

of ring by Adam Young so can you

elaborate on why you agree with Adam

there

I think it's uh

you know I I think I I okay I study

futurism a lot and where we're going to

be in 10 20 years from now uh neural

links and stuff like that from everybody

I look at is coming in 2030s creating

virtual environments that you can be

immersed in

um but you know I I look at

uh and I'm I've been a gamer for a long

time but I look at my kids in VR

headsets we have two VR sets at our

house they're absolutely amazing I love

playing on the VR headset I haven't done

it for a year and has been sitting on a

a table for a year now being used that's

what I thought and and I had two boys I

have an 11 who's almost 12 and 13 year

old boys they love gaming they would

gain 12 16 hours a day if you let them

uh then played the VR for the first two

weeks and they have never asked to play

it since to the point that like being

sedentary at the computer I don't I want

them to be active so I'm like you can't

play video games but you can go play VR

and they're like oh we're gonna go

outside and ride our bikes and go play

with our friends rather than do that so

for me it's

I I think the metaverse will be

something at some point in time I guess

is probably in 10 to 15 years from now

um but it's a it's well it's well before

it's time and my notes literally wrote

that everyone I know who has played VR

spends like two days playing it and then

they just let it sit and never use it

again I literally wrote that down and

I've never even played the VR thing so

you should know you should it's it's

unbelievable it really is unbelievable

but it's it's tiring right and you have

to go do that thing you know people

equate it to a cell phone well it's

nothing like a cell phone right cell

phone I could pull out of my pocket

while I'm sitting on the toilet and read

through my Twitter feed right like I'm

not gonna put my VR headset on yeah

that's just not gonna happen you know

there's so many solutions that the cell

phone provides that you know the

metaverse and VR now

you know I if if we look at what they're

saying the metaverse is with ER and all

that that's one thing and then you know

if we look at World of Warcraft you know

which is its own metaverse what kind of

what they're calling everything now was

is an unbelievable game and and you know

made you know blizzard a billion dollar

company

um you know universes with all kinds of

cool in them but those are just

video games to me that's not a metaverse

right as as they describe it so I I

think it's uh I think there's a lot

better things we could be spending our

time on you know AI uh you know being

high high on that list yeah I'd also say

there's better things that companies

like Facebook I'm not calling them meta

could be investing their money in this

is just a stat that I pulled up before

the call before the podcast is so far

since up until October meta has spent 36

billion dollars building their metaverse

to compare the initial iPhone cost 3.4

billion dollars Google invested about

6.6 billion into creating the Android

operating system the first Xbox 4

billion

uh you know I think that they're on the

wrong track there and I think that the

concept is cool but just for now kind of

lame I don't know

the only thing that has ever cost this

much 36 billion have any idea anybody

know like or something

what's that

the Hadron Collider like no

landing on the moon landing on the moon

you got it for those of you that don't

listen to the all-in podcast there's

some great songs there you go

the CERN the Large Hadron colliders has

cost 4.75 billion okay so 36B sounds

ridiculous waste of money

I I think we've spent three billion to

try to figure out uh Fusion Energy yeah

we're gonna get back

fully the better person better is better

verse you know it's like it just uh you

know no I think I think they actually

have half a million Revenue generating

users

um but you know I I think my quote which

was that the metaverse is a waste of

time uh should have a time

period added to it right now it's a

waste of time and I I think all this

land grab and buying land in the

metaverse like look I get it I used to

sell things from EverQuest when I was a

kid in my parents basement I ran a great

business selling on EverQuest I

used to buy big accounts from people

break them down sell the pieces uh sell

platinum so like these things do have

value but

The Meta versus ecosystem and physical

space is too big it's too many different

platforms some of it's blockchain some

of it's not blockchain there's too many

differences in access point there's no

standardization and so when there's

unlimited space and no standardization

there's no point in investing in

something like meta real estate because

there's you need a closed economy and a

captive audience to make money and you

just simply can't do that right now so

it is a waste of time if you're trying

to open a business in it uh it's it's a

waste of time to try and advertise in it

right now it's a waste of time to like

invest in the Technologies in my opinion

there's just better ways to make money

right now if you have these skills so

um I mean if you want to hustle someone

and convince them to pay a hundred

thousand dollars for your metaverse

shopping mall location and you can do

that great I mean cool you hustle

someone congratulations

yeah like awesome nice go buy a Lambo

with it uh but the reality is if we're

like thinking about business and what we

should be investing our time in there's

no advertising in the metaverse that

makes sense there's no conversion

optimization of metaverse experiences

you're not tracking you know conversions

and AD impressions in the metaverse like

you're better off spending money on a

billboard where there's no

metrics like this just imagine can you

imagine if Facebook took that same money

invested it into AI generative AI

advertising congregation to advertise on

their platform as well as all the other

platforms based on the massive data

feedback loop that they have and already

you know what would that have done to

their advertising business to make any

Advertiser be able to auto-generative AI

driven uh you know ad creative copy all

that kind of stuff they had spent that

money on that their stock would probably

be 10 x uh what it was that

they go chase this this false narrative

that you know everybody wants to hang

out too early

no uh so the counter to that I I would

say yeah we are a bit biased in that the

access we have to the world so the you

know the one counter that I've heard

that's a good counter is

said hey you know you've got a bunch of

super poor people with no access to

anything they can't travel they never

leave their home so it creates an

opportunity for those people that don't

have access that's actually the only

thing that I've heard now maybe there's

I agree with that well but by the way

how are you going to monetize people

that don't have anybody I don't know how

are they gonna buy the fort 399 dollar

meta Quest Pro oh yes I just saw a TV

commercial for it it's literally 1500

bucks I'm like come on that's not you're

not pitching that that kind of

eliminates that and then you know at the

my argument also would say that I

completely agree you know if someone and

you know a poor neighborhood and some

slum somewhere in a third world country

wants to you know go tour the Louvre

with the you know that's awesome but

back to the 36 billion dollar number

like

I mean Harrison is that person gonna get

the band whipped to connect the headset

to actually be able to load the visuals

of the loop like they don't have

Broadband it's true so there's a lot of

there's a lot of parts that have to be

solved here and I think they could have

spent that money better they they could

have spent 36 billion dollars on

anything

I agree with all of you and I've lost so

much on my position that I just won't

sell it so maybe that was their goal

yeah in all fairness I I brought it up

because I came across a link that said

the metaverse will change the way we

interact with Brands and I think at its

core like that's not wrong right but I

think when you dive deeper into it like

I would agree with both of you guys or

all three of you guys that it it does

seem to be a little premature at this

time

um and Adam I do owe you an apology I

have your quote right here in front of

me and it does say right now so I did

not mean to misquote you you you nailed

it right I actually misreported

information maybe when it's the not

waste of time the price of the VR

headset will not be 1500 bucks well I

will say this I will say this the adult

content Studios have shifted into VR

which is generally a leading indicator

that it will be meaningful technology at

some point we saw this a long time ago I

mean my first trade show I went to was

inner next that industry was nascent and

new when I was that young and the

technology they were building is

foundationally the technology that we've

built our businesses on today conversion

tracking link tracking this type of

thing so that industry is generally

ahead of the curve even though it's kind

of faux pas to talk about and almost all

those studios are now investing the

majority of their new content into this

type of technology and other types of

hardware and so you know I think it will

be cool one day and it will be valuable

to people like us and people well-built

business businesses on it but it's just

you know it's 10 years out and to your

point Jason if neuralink front runs this

technology and can like integrate my

brain directly in the visual cortex to a

metaverse then you know I think I think

then Facebook loses the race to whoever

owns the hardware have you uh I don't

know if you read Rick kurzweil's stuff

at all there's a great podcast most

recently on Lex Friedman

um you know the interesting thing about

him he wrote a book uh called The

Singularity as near 20 years ago

I think it was like 143 predictions in

that book if you go to Google they

actually track those predictions uh

something like 83 percent of them have

been correct within one year and 96 or

something like that within five years

keep in mind he wrote this book before

the Palm Pilot came out just to give you

some
on where we were uh he did a podcast

with Ray with uh Lex Friedman the other

day and basically he said I'm not

changing any of my timelines in that

book he said uh uh we'll pass the Turing

test uh by uh 2029 which is only seven

years away Turing test basically says

you can have a conversation with a with

a machine and you will be it will be

indistinguishable from a human

um and he's saying in 2030 we will uh

Advance the human lifespan one year uh

faster so one year per year so and then

it will increase from there so basically

anybody that's under 20 years old right

now will live forever

um and then he's also saying neural link

type technology will become very uh

widespread in in the 2030s is the next

prediction there so well Harrison and I

have have talked about this Jason uh we

know for a fact that as soon as a neural

link allows someone to interface with a

computer at higher bandwidth than using

our fingers it doesn't matter what one

of those devices costs I have to take it

and implant it in our engineers and then

they get the throughput of that

technology as it continues to upgrade if

they can manipulate a computer five

times as fast than someone with their

fingers then that's the equivalent of

five of those humans using our normal

interfaces and so I predict that whoever

gains access to that type of Technology

first and can manipulate computers

faster than physical interfaces will uh

effectively rule the world or be able to

conquer the business landscape in a way

that that no one else will and so it's

going to be really incredible technology

I mean Harrison and I have even talked

about as soon as that comes out it

doesn't matter if it if we have to cash

in our lives savings to integrate that

technology into people's heads but like

that that will be uh

alive yeah it's going to be some sick

Roi just putting implants by the way

just talking about futurism and

generative Ai and I mean that's what

I've spent probably 30 of my time well

how about how about this next time we

have you on because we're for sure gonna

have you back as soon as you're able to

and want to we will make our entire

episode for the most part about that and

we'll just kind of I was gonna say half

Yachts half Futures

affiliate marketing show we're supposed

to say uh topic here and on that note

I will let everyone know that the

beautiful disclaimer that Josh read at

the beginning of this call was written

by openai's chat GPT I emailed it to our

general counsel and he said yes sir

that's fine

awesome and so there you go I can read

it again I can read it again for Jason I

know how much

Jason don't do that I think we're good

Jason for real man we really all three

of us really appreciate you coming on

you're always a fantastic guest I'm

ready to run through a brick wall right

now after listening to you I know you

said you could talk for 10 hours and

honestly I could listen to you talk for

10 hours so again thank you we

definitely would love to have you back

later in the year if you would be so

generous to offer your time with us

again uh before before we wrap this up

I'm actually just going to give you the

floor please feel free to use this talk

about a for D real quick anything you

guys are up to any events you guys

coming up got coming up anything you

want our listeners to know

uh sure uh uh a4d we focus on you know

Affiliates that run clean business uh

you know most no cloaking none of that

like most of our stuff is white hat

clean business I've I've been in that

world for a long time and you know I'm

looking to work with people that want to

build real businesses and build

Enterprise Value and create you know

opportunity in the world not just quick

hustle Fast Cash grab honestly that's

that's what we're looking for

um also anybody that's already done well

in life and wants to Charter Yachts uh

would love to would love to do that for

you but uh

yeah uh legal

um we own a probably the largest or one

of the largest lead generation

businesses in the mass storage space so

if you play in the place at all uh we'd

love to work with you as well so

thanks Jason for Josh at offer Vault for

Adam at ringbah Harrison and Jason from

a for D let's make that paper let's make

that dough this was the affiliate

marketing show we will see you guys next

week take care