Chris Coming back to this abdication of personal responsibility that people seem so desperate to just shove on to somebody else, like, let somebody else take care of this. Let somebody else do a fix this. Even right now, I think there's a lot of people out there who are like, I don't want to be part of like, this isn't right. What's happening is wrong, but I'm too comfortable right to jeopardize that. I mean, I fall into that category at least partly. I also fall into the category of I have a lot to lose. Andre I don't like anything you just said. Leave this guy alone for a couple months, he's got HUD displays and control his computer and shit with his hands. Oh, man. Well, in our nets, it's been a while since you've seen the Chris and Andre show. We've been doing some stuff. I've been busy. I had something going on in my local municipality, family stuff and the holidays, but we're back. One thing we're and we're excited to be back. So it's a new year. Chris has got new digs. He looks like he's, he's like, laundering money. He's waiting for the next drop to come in. Yeah. And one thing we're going to do differently is, and we talked about this a while ago, we're done talking about politics for the most part, unless it's something uniquely worth a conversation. There's so many other people to go listen to about politics, and I'll be honest, this is all I want to say. I'm not a fan of the current administration. My current thought still remains true. If you support this current administration, I've got nothing for you, and I will move on. So, yeah, there's other stuff to talk about. Chris Yeah, it's been, I mean, what like nine months, roughly, it feels like give or take. Yeah, that since we've recorded, obviously, we we have still been communicating regularly on the sidelines. I was helping you out with your recent project, and obviously we're still brothers, so we still talk and do life with each other and and I think that's really what a lot of this podcast is going to be focused on going forward, right? Is the the idea of doing life with people, you know, building your community. What opportunities are there out there? Because, like, Andre said, I don't know. I said Andre, I never addressed the crowd, the audience, but like you said, there are a million other podcasts and shows out there that will discuss the latest goings on with politics, and we'll still obviously be dealing with that stuff in our day to day lives, but the idea of sitting down, you know, every other week or once a week, and having to, like, hash through all that stuff again when honestly, like, it's bad enough, kind of going through it in the day to day life, it seemed really unappealing, I think, to both of us. And so I think the, yeah, like, one of the things that we really want to do is, is figure out how we can turn this into, you know, something that can help more people, whether that's just expanding the conversations and the audience that we have. You know those conversations with, or you know what the topics of the show are actually about. But I think just to piggyback on your last sentiment regarding this administration, you know, I'll share that in my personal life, it's been severely affected by the actions of this administration. For those of you that don't know, my wife is a German citizen. She came over when she was, like, two or three, I think, but she her parents never got her her US citizenship, so she's been living here on a green card since pretty much then, and because of everything that's been going on, she had actually applied for citizenship. But then, when she heard the stories about people getting detained and then deported at their citizenship hearings, or the fact that the North Carolina in North Carolina, the Federal. The building that the citizenship interview was going to be in is the same building that ice is located in there in Durham, and she decided that it was no longer safe for her to be here, and so her and my youngest daughter have moved to Germany, and it's been really tough, you know, having to go through that and figuring out kind of what our next move is. But it has also, I think, motivated me to want to figure out, like, how do I how do I do more right to push back against the ridiculousness that we do see, and I do, but I do think a lot of that starts in your local communities, you know, like building those networks, building those communities, and having people that that can rely on each other, because none of us do this by ourselves, you know, like Somebody said to me the other day, it's, you know, DIY is, do it yourselves, right, not yourself, right? Andre Yeah, there's a lot going on. And one thing I do want to talk about, it's, it's not, well, it's not, it kind of runs in parallel, you know, I'm a developer, and I spend a lot of time in nerd communities. Big fan of reading economic news and focusing in on industries. I think we're in a bubble. I you think, Chris yeah, it's definitely runs in parallel in a lot of ways. But go ahead, Andre one thing that I've been saying for years, and hopefully we can probably tackle some of this as we go forward is there's, there is an off ramp to some of the things that are happening, especially with the economy and people's personal economies. I know a lot of people that have been laid off in the news. It's, there's littered of you know, people are getting laid off. You can't get rehired. God forbid you're over 40. And I'm just going to say this one time, times a million. What did he say? You are the only person that's going to pay you what you're worth, like, full stop, end of story. And if you're not the person to go out and venture on your own, create an environment for other people to you know, or for the people that are create an environment for others to work with you. It's not, I don't think it's going to get any better. I was just recently out of country, and I've been out of country twice last year, and one thing I noticed was there's a lot of Chinese cars, and we have given up not to delve into politics. But we've given up that soft, diplomatic, durable good vehicles, and we conceded that. So it makes me think that our economy is going to take further hits in the near and midterm of our future. So with the layoffs, with the instability of future job creation and and what have you, for those that can build a company, for others who are like minded, and for and for those that are not in that mind. I hate the word mindset, but that are not that person that don't have that risk tolerance. Look for people that are really trying to build real companies. Because I feel, I feel terrible for like, what's going on right now? Chris Well, and it's, there's a couple of different things, right? Because I think you talk about the bubble, there's the AI aspect of that, right? Let's put AI in quotes, because we all know that it's not actually AI. It's it literally. They are just bots. That's all that these things are. They're just the fact that they are trained on, you know, the internet's like the wealth of knowledge that is possessed by the Internet, regardless of copyright laws and IP and all of that stuff. You know, Andre When you say internet, don't you mean reddit? Chris Vey fair. But then, yeah, you've also got, what I think is this, like. Shift in the last 25 I mean, really, I think kind of since the.com and I'm sure there were instances of it before, but this idea of build it to sell it, right? I'm not building something to create a quality product. I'm not building something to solve a problem. I'm building something to create hype and then get somebody to pay me way more than what it's worth so I can cash out and go live on the beach somewhere. And it's essentially this, what I feel is this very pervasive belief that everybody else is getting theirs. So if I don't cheat like everybody else is, to get mine, then I'm actually the sucker who's falling behind right like that. The whole, the whole playing field has been upended. So why should anybody play by the rules anymore? I'm just going to stab somebody in the back before they get the chance to stab me. And it's creating this whole environment of just like, I mean, I don't know, what do you think on that? Andre I don't think it's stabbing the in the back. I think people are really afraid, like, there's some uncertainty about the future of, like, people's personal economies, sure, Chris but in that regard, right? I think it's made people more selfish. Andre Maybe, no, I think they're desperate, Chris but, but Aren't they being selfish? It that? I guess I'm saying that they're selfish and it's driven by desperation. Okay, so it's kind of, Andre yeah, I can see that I had a client call me today, and, you know, he's got challenges. And he asked me, What are my thoughts on AI, and he's not the first one to do that, to be honest with you, yeah, over the last I'd say, what is it January, over the last three months, I've had like, several people like ask me, how do they get started in AI, and they're not developers. And I was like, No, don't do Chris I mean, for as an example, right? You earlier identified yourself as a developer, and you yourself are not like, how do I, you know, I need to get in on this AI craze. So why? Why do people who are not technically literate at all? Right, that'd be, it'd be kind of like 20 years ago, being like, Well, how do I get into this whole WordPress thing? Like, teach me how to develop WordPress sites and build like, well, if you're not already a web developer, don't start trying to learn it now. Like, I mean, I say that as somebody who, 20 years ago, was learning how to deal with WordPress and, you know, all of that. But I did. I did have a little bit more of a technical background before I dove into that. Andre So it's, it's because we've, we've gotten to this hype makes right? And people are really, really, really concerned about their futures, and I'm saying that is a motivating factor, yeah. And when there's so much uncertainty and you're hearing all this blah, blah. I mean, we see it with YouTube. So YouTube is no social media is no different. And the problem is not everybody's going to make it like that's just like, it's just the way it turns out. It's like Chris any industry, right? The the people who get in early on and make it big make other people think, oh, I can do that too, right? You've decided, right? And like, even for us, we did our podcast for a couple of years before we ever published anything on YouTube. And if we started publishing on YouTube right away, even if it was audio only, we probably would have had a bigger audience just because we would have been there earlier when more people were starting to get into it, right? And we've been very fortunate to grow to with 300 and almost 30 subscribers, which I know for a lot of people would be like, but we're like, fuck yeah, that's 330 people who, like, you know, checking us out, and we're sorry we've been gone for so long. But, you know, I think ultimately it's that, yeah, it's that, that belief that, and I think for a lot of people, it looks easy, right? I think there's a belief it was like, all you, all you got to do is sit there with the phone and make videos all day, and it's like, yeah, but think about what you're ultimately committing to, like I've thought, because I watch a ton of YouTube, right? And I have thought a lot recently about the creators and like that whole lifestyle, and I it does not sound appealing to me the more I think about it, right? Like you're gonna do all of this planning scheduling the moment that you take a vacation. And you're not continuing to publish content YouTube dings you in the algorithm, right? Like the number of creators that I've seen who have shifted the way that they market their videos to appeal to the algorithm, right? Which, I mean, ultimately, is appealing to people, but it's the it's the click bait. You know, every headline is so and so destroys so and so, right? Like, you know it and it, it gets to the point we talked about this so much over the last, you know, year, the the negativity of it all, where it's dashing on everything and everybody again, coming from the show, who sucks more, right? Like we yes that segment, and we pick things that didn't suck, but I'm just saying that there is like, because ultimately, like we, you, everybody is falling victim to it in a lot of ways. But I Andre see, right? I see it with one of the reasons why we step back from our previous, like content menu is because it's not us. Basically, it's like, it's not really what I want to do. And I see it with some like, a cosmic wonder is one person, I see it a lot of like, he's got a his they've got a website now, they've got a newsletter. They're mentioning the website along with the YouTube content. And that's something I've been saying for a long time. Like, build your own platform. You'll be fine. And even with that, it's like any business. If you're looking at it as a get rich quick scheme, you're screwed. But if you look at as a business, you're going to make it anecdotally, like in 2019 I started my company and like, and I'm very grateful in 2025 was the first year my company fully financed itself, but that's a long time. But if I was looking at as a get rich quick scheme, I'd be I'd be screwed, right? There's a reason why an ongoing stat has been that most small businesses fail in the first three to five years. It's because people are just trying to get the bag. Yeah, that's not how you start Andre manage a company. Like, if that's your motivation, you're, you're not going to make it Chris because you're, you're in it for the wrong reasons, right? Or what as part of it could be part Andre of Right, right? And you're going to make decisions because you're hungry, right? Chris Yeah, you're going to make decisions out of desperation, instead of making the decisions that are going to be for the long term benefit of you and your company, right? Andre And I'll just tell you as somebody that's been there and kind of gets it now, am I like raking in millions of dollars? No, but it's the Chris babies and millions of dollars. Yes, Andre any magnitude of millions. No, but I say that to say that this growing a business is grow. It's literally growing a business. Growing an organization is literally growing an organization. To tie this back into YouTube or like any like any endeavor, business endeavor, you can't go into it thinking you're going to make, you know, money hand over fist in your first year, I lean back on some of my McDonald's experience when you buy your first McDonald's franchise, you're working that thing for the first three to five years to try to pay down the debts, service of debt, so that way you can eventually do things that you like you invested on doing, or you envision yourself doing. You're working the store. You're the store manager. You're working six, seven days a week. That's one of the reasons why McDonald's is it is, or probably what I don't know. I currently don't. I'm not in that realm anymore. It's a very successful franchise because the owner operators are super invested in what happens. That's why it takes five subways to equal the cash flow of the McDonald's. There's a there's a lot of things where you can compare. And say, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Take the fundamentals and apply that to your situation. So, but yeah, we're in a bubble. It's the it's the latest craze. I don't know what's going to stop it. Chris Well, because it's, it's like the that snake eating its own tail, right? When you hear about the the incestuousness of the investments between Microsoft and Nvidia and Amazon. And an open AI, and it's just like, they're all just paying each other with each other's money and circles. And everybody's like, look at all the money we're making. It's like, but wait that literally came in and went right back out the door to somebody else. Like, how an Andre Oracle, like, the thing that blew my mind, and I can't say this clearly enough. Fuck. Larry Ellison, what is Oracle gonna do? Like they're like, one of the shittiest companies in our in my known history, and I don't even write shit in Java anymore because of Oracle. Like that is not a joke. Personal commitment. I refuse. I refuse. I can't stand that. Man so much. It's like, No, I'm good. Chris I watch Terminator two enough that I Andre what, bro, what are you talking about? Man, I don't all right, but here's, here's the cold reality check. Ai, is not that no terms. The term should not be used in at any stretch of the imagination, the incestuous in like relationships and investment even for they stop building the f1 50 lightning, and they're turning their battery plant into a data center. GM is dropping their 2030 goal of EVs. There's a lot of things like right now where it's like, yeah, if you pull this string far enough, it doesn't work out. Chris Man, well, the video or the article you sent me the other day about Facebook selling, like, basically creating what hedge funds out of their data center leases, Speaker 1 meta specifically, has started financing the build out of data centers in a way I won't pretend to fully understand, in part because it's designed to be opaque. In the other part, because I'm not smart like that. But essentially, meta has created tradable securities, financial instruments using the leases of their data centers. Chris Are you kidding me? So when ultimately that pans out to be nothing, all of those leases become useless, valueless, and we've created another section of the economy. Andre Well, the s, p5, hundreds, like the the chunk of growth has all come from like six companies. All six of those companies are, like, in this weird relationship with AI. I'm not saying I want the economy to crash, but the economy probably needs to correct Chris it at this point. I don't even like it's it's going to crash. It cannot continue to run at this pace. And there's nothing that I've seen that indicates that any adults in the room are going to stand up and do anything about it. Andre Well, it's so different than the housing crisis. So we can't pretend like there are adults in the room. It's, yeah, so let's so I'm not. I'm not. I don't know. I'm not an economist. I've just seen enough city things happen. Like I lived through the.com bubble. I looked through and experienced the housing crisis that affected me personally. All the signs are on the wall, and I hear the arguments. What if it works? Sure. What if it works? Chris Well, what if it works, right? You got millions of people who no longer have a Andre job, but that's that's been a thing since, like 2024 that we haven't really discussed, right, right? The thing, the thing I said during covid is, Chris when they figure out how to do it without people or with less people, Andre with less people, you're in trouble, yep, and Chris because there's no reason to go back at that point, Andre right? So, Chris because, again, they're not incentivized, right in any way, shape or form, to do that right now. Andre Well, businesses are incentivized to make money sure that is like So bottom line takes precedent over everything else investment becomes. Chris But isn't that only, not only, I feel like a lot of that tends to be driven by publicly traded companies, right? And the bottom line with the shareholders and that a lot of times, privately owned companies will make decisions that are not. Necessarily what's best for the bottom line, but what's best for the long term vision of the company. Andre They're they're a minority. Okay, I'm starting to believe that those companies are a minority. I still think it's in a company's best interest to stay alive and to have some cash padding in the bank. I think the companies like Arizona Tea, which is somebody that you may be thinking of Costco, with their dollar 25 hot dog or whatever it is, those companies are probably going to outlast the norm, right, right? But, but, Chris so shouldn't that be, then an argument for their business model being more successful than the other ones. But it's, it's the long term play versus the short term is, what is, I guess, what the trade off is, right? Andre Yeah, most companies are not thinking about the long term plan, which also weird, right? Like, kind of, it's really fucking weird. Like, I've concluded that most companies are not going to think about the long term benefits because of uncertainty, right? When you inject all these extra variables, right? Like, like, the last 18 months have been I kind of, I kind of can't expect them to do anything but go into survival mode, sure, yeah. Chris And in that way, you're right. Like, I'm not. Maybe it felt or came across as though I'm, like, blaming these companies. I understand corporations. You know, even family owned businesses like they, they are in business to make money, right? They're in business to turn a profit, and they're going to do what's in the best interest of their ability to do that, some of them think more long term than others. You know, it's the it's the the people who look to corporations to, like, stand up to the Trump regime and things like that, where it's like they're, they don't fucking care, Andre right, right? But I don't know if that's necessarily Speaker 2 true, but that they don't, Andre I think that it's not beneficial to have a target on your back just because, right. But I also think there is a there's a social like hint of social justice warriors that need to shut the fuck up. Sometimes you're pushing people to make decisions they wouldn't normally make when they make them, but they would make them eventually, when that when they are positioned to do it the right way. Yeah. Chris I mean so the left I feel like, in general, or liberals, tend to have an issue with feeling like things aren't getting done fast enough, and that even the half steps are not, you know, like, that's not enough, which I do, like, I understand the sentiment, but it's kind of like, at the same time, I mean, it's, Andre I don't know, you're Not, shut the fuck up. You don't. You're not. Chris At some point you just got to, kind of let things not just shut up and let it be what it is, but like, you don't have to make everybody feel like a fucking asshole all the fucking time, right? Like, because ultimately what you do is just chasing people off. I I think you get more people who become entrenched in their position because of that type of behavior than you do people who are like, Oh, wow, everybody's yelling at me, so I should change my position, right? Like, I Andre don't, I don't, I don't know. I think more people are good. You're going to force them to indecision, right? If I, if I stay quiet, I I get off the radar. Chris No, but, but ultimately, Indecision is the same as citing Right. Andre Like, I don't disagree, but if you, if you take away the moves that people could make because you're pushing them, yes, they're that's a problem. That's, that's the problem I'm trying to solve. It's like, yeah, maybe you should let them make the decision when it best suits them, because you don't know everything that's entailed in that decision when we're I feel Chris like it's a choose your battles kind of you know, like, when? When are you gonna have this? When are you gonna decide that this is the this is the moment that I need to push back again. Andre Case in point, Disney, right? They didn't take every fight, but the fights they took were they won the grant, and they have the chat, the war chest to and the the attorneys to take on whatever battle they want. Um. Hmm. So in that light, for example, like, case, the thing that comes to mind is the whole, let's get it rid of dei blah blah, blah. They're like, what? And they didn't really budge Apple, same thing. No, we're not going to do that. So pushing people, because it's like, social justice, like, top one thing that to bitch about today isn't very effective. You know, just kind of like, let people, like, give, give some space for people to make the best decision in companies too. I think that would would have been more effective. But when you don't, you get the wave of like, investment dollars to follow the latest trend, and then you're kind of forcing the conversation. Case back to AI Apple has been very adamant. Like, yeah, we don't have what you're looking for. This is not the AI you're looking for, and they're safe. Their consciousness has saved them money. And yeah, they can outsource shit to Gemini. Why not? Yeah, they don't look stupid. If it doesn't work, right? They can outsource shit to open AI, right? So I think that would be an example of, yeah, maybe everybody bitching about everything isn't the best, or everybody jumping into the, you know, to the pool because everybody else is doing it, it's not the best move. And Apple's done it successfully with search. You've done it successfully now with quote, unquote, AI, yeah, Chris so just do whatever. Apple does Andre not seem that, but, but I would say there's a case for you can be upset and irritated about a situation, but you don't have to react to it, so like, flip it, in my opinion, Chris yeah, and I think there is often that initial kind of explosive reaction, you know, sure, but it's normal. Andre But, yeah, you can't just be like, I'm going to react, because everybody else is reacting like, that's that's weird, but I to tie it back to unemployment, people getting laid off and the uncertainty, and actually companies are hiring people back because they're like, oh, Chris somebody to babysit this AI, Andre which is weird. I wouldn't go back, Chris no, but I understand that not everybody's in that same not everybody has that option, right? I Andre where I'm torn oftentimes is, when do you take a stand? So I'll tell you, personally, I get at least three emails a week from headhunters for fill in the blank job they pay a lot of fucking money like, like, I'd be lying if I said like, I I consider, but those same companies would lay me off all the same. Right? So, no, right? I think that that's the question I keep asking myself. And I feel sorry for people that I don't feel sorry for them, I would ask that people consider like, yeah, if you get and I've been laid off. So it's like, yeah, kind of like, yeah, once or twice, I'm not going to put myself in that position again. Like the reality is, I'm actually critical of myself because I got laid off one time. What made me think it wasn't going to happen again? The company we worked for together, they fucking got their private equity money, and neither one of us worked here anymore, yep. So the second time, I was like, No, I learned my lesson. Fuck that. I'm not a good employee. I don't want to be a good employee. Chris I still was an employee. I don't mind being an employee, but I understand we're different in that, in that regard. But I've also been very fortunate to find a job now that, you know, I absolutely love, and so, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, I mean, but you know, like I liked, I loved my job at D zone. Yeah, me too. I was watching something the other day. Speaker 1 The interviewer asked me what stood out about the company. I brought up their bad reviews out to Chris you on the company overview. Speaker 1 Well, I did see that on Glassdoor. You guys had half a star. That's something that I always look at prospective companies, I do have a zero star standard. You definitely met my standards there. As far as that goes. That was the first thing before most Okay, gotcha so thanks for that. Chris It was making me think, like how funny it would be to go back and read some of the old like D zone, glass door reviews and stuff. Like, I remember that we used to sit there and like, when a new one would come in, it would be the like, the fastest gossip to spread throughout the office. Oh, there's a new glass door review. Who do you think wrote it? Oh, but it was this person. Oh, they mentioned this. It's gonna be the like, Andre What's sad about that is like they weren't wrong. No, I mean, the heart of the company wasn't bad. I just yeah, they weren't wrong. It's kind of like, No, I can see that, yeah. Chris I mean, it is, it was one of those environments that is not for everyone, right, right? Because there is, there was a lot of weird, you know, not weird, but, like, Speaker 2 questionable. I Chris wouldn't even Yes, it was questionable. But I guess, quirks about the that place, you know, like the fuck off Fridays and, you know, fucking Rick Ross himself. Andre His name was really Rick Ross. Chris Yeah, we both work for Rick Ross. So if you guys have any demos that you want us to listen to, just send them to the Chris and Andre show@gmail.com we'll send them right over to him. At one point, they put me in charge of hiring somebody. I had never hired a person in my life. I had annoyed. They were like, right up the job description. I was like, here. How's this? Oh, it looks good. I almost hired like some terrible people, Andre you hired me. Oh, whoops whoopsie. Chris Oh no, that was this was after you. Oh, okay, yeah, I didn't really get to hire you. Andre Who hired me? Then, technically was Matt OB, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Chris Cuz, technically I was under him, I think at that point and like I, you know, helped to like, review and be like, This is what would be helpful for me as somebody, to like, join my team. And I remember I did your phone interview, their first phone interview, Matt, don't fucking bring this guy in. Andre Yeah, that might be the way that happened. It worked out. It did. Chris It all worked out. And obviously I was like, No, he seems really good. I think he's like, he's a developer. He's got experience. I think he could definitely do this. Had to do fucking tea time. Andre And Rick was like, why are you wearing a tie? I'm like, take it off. Chris Nobody fucking told me that was on me. I'm sorry. OB should have told you when you were coming in for your in person. Because, I mean, I asked when I did my interview, like I had a phone interview with Mitch and John Esposito. Andre That's wild. Yeah, I Chris know, right, and, and I remember specific. So there was a Craigslist ad, and my mom found it, because at the time, I had just gotten laid off from my marketing gig that I was doing remotely. And I was like, well, I won't really want to get into writing, and it was a Content Curator position. And she was like, oh, there's this company in Carrie, and it says it's like the Silicon Valley in the heart of the triangle. And, you know, like, but it was funny, because they were like, we don't, don't send a standard resume. We just want this, the list of following things. And I was like, okay, that actually, like, might help me out here. And I sent him my stuff, and I had to send him a writing sample. And, like, I think I wrote about Sencha with some, like, some Sencha book that I found. I had no idea what sentia was. Like. I was just like, they're like, Oh, this is good. And then they really liked the fact that I had run or opened up, started a company with two of my friends doing web design and video production and stuff like that. And so, yeah, they were like, all right. Well, hire you. Andre Yeah, it was. It was one of the one of the best jobs ever had. Chris How did you find out? Oh, Jim, that's right, Jim. Jim recommended you. Andre Yeah, it was one of the best jobs I've ever had, and great experience. And my heart goes out to people that get laid off, and I really do get it like I, I'll be honest, I was heartbroken. It was, it was a big downer for me, personally, mentally, because I'm getting older, right? I'll be, I'll be, I'll be a certain age this year. Yeah, ah, so I understand what that feels like. But I also think that, and I sincerely believe that sometimes, like the people that I really believe that sometimes the people that get laid off aren't meant to be employees. Like, I really do believe that. Chris Yeah, I mean, how many times that we talked about this, a lot on the show before, but even in our personal lives, like, how often, right, do you see a company that hires way more people into a certain department or a role than they need, and then six months later, they're having to let some of those people go or or those people are walking because they're not feeling like they're contributing. They don't have any like, right? I mean, I'm thinking of the marketing team in particular, right? The number of people that they would hire. And then it's like, well, we got six people on the marketing team all of a sudden, and one's doing one social media channel, one's doing another, one's writing some emails, like you're trying to create things for these people to do. And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, we're not getting anything from this. What value is this producing? Get rid of half of these people and dump all of their work onto the three people that are left, who then are like, Well, fuck this. I didn't get any more pay, but really don't make anything for that. So now I'm just having to do twice the amount of work. So then they leave. Andre So I think that I don't know. I'm torn on this, like, this trend of people, which is slowing down from what I read, trend of people like going to a different job to get more money. Yeah, I think that's a bad strategy. Chris Is a horrible strategy, especially because, yeah, I mean, I would be curious, if you talk to those people, how many of them wish they'd stayed at one of the other jobs that they left, right? Right? I'm not saying it's 100% but I bet most of them had one of those gigs that are like, I really loved it, but, you know, I was chasing, yeah, well, and for 5k right? Like, fuck even 10 or 15 a year, right? We're not talking a week, we're not even talking a month. We're talking 10, 15k a year. Andre That's like 200 bucks after taxes a month, right? If you're lucky, right? So without, I don't want to, I don't want to advertise myself, but I do consult. I do consult a lot, and one of the things I find is that across industries, there's a lot of fundamentals that people can use to go to the next thing that they're trying to do, whether it's how they grow their business, whether it's how they execute to get to a different thing or, like, none of that shit changes. YouTube's the same way software is the same way. Chris It's all the same basic building blocks, right and there, and it's why I've never fully understood a lot of the hiring practices when it comes to requiring like experience within a field and stuff like that. Like, if you can learn, I will teach you what you need to know technically, right about this job or this product, but as long as you have the skill set of being able to absorb that knowledge and then turn it into something that you can use yourself like that's all I need in terms of skill set, Andre there's a there's a couple questions that I asked I've asked people During interviews. One is, tell me about the last disagreement you had with a co worker or manager. That tells me a lot about a person, and the other one is, can you tell me about a time or experience where you had to learn a new skill? Or process, and how did it turn out? I don't ask if you were successful. I don't ask if it was a home run. I just want to know if like people can kind of like one, understand that not everybody's going to agree with you. Number two, they're willing to learn and be coachable if you can disagree with people or and still get a result. And if you can, like, just be open to learning different things and experiencing different things, I can work with anybody, yeah. Chris Can you take, can you take the opportunity, right, right? Can you, can you see this opportunity, and can you take advantage of it? Andre I mean, so for me, for example, at D zone, I was an operations guy. I came from McDonald's Corporation. I just happened to be really, and I still am really passionate about writing software. Wasn't my day job having sell spreadsheets, which I currently now hate. Chris I think that's thanks to me. Is like you manage all this shit in spreadsheets, we're gonna write a software program that has a database that we can query for all I'm not doing that, Andre yeah, what you're doing doesn't work for me. And I, I've taken the skills I've, I've gained in real estate, construction, McDonald's, and I've now, you know, you know, I started a company. I use the same skills I learned in all those things, and I use them to consult with other people. It's all the same shit, and it's not that complicated. There are some complexities, but we've got it. We've got, I want to do a service to and just give the shit away, like we shouldn't be gatekeeping X, Y and Z, right? I keep seeing a lot of videos on YouTube. 2026, is a year to start your YouTube YouTube channel. I don't, I don't disagree. Chris Yeah, you know, the best time was 15 years ago, and the second best time is now. Right if you haven't done it yet. I mean, sure you might as well get off your ass and do it. But I mean, YouTube is 2026. Is not better than 2020 or 2021 in terms of the year to start your YouTube, Andre just pick a year, it is the number one streaming platform. It's ubiquitous with streaming. It's ubiquitous with search. But the foundation you need to have is people say, I'm going to build a brand. Well, what does a brand mean? But yeah, cool logo, great name. What's the infrastructure? Your infrastructure is maybe a website, maybe like the content you put on these platforms. Chris Visit the visit Chris and Andre Show com, visit Chris Andre com, visit Andre Show com, if you guys haven't visited Chris and Andre Show com yet, it's got a brand new facelift thanks to our in house developer. Andre Yeah, sure, but all of our videos are edited by Chris like so I say that and say this, leverage the skills you have Chris Andre community right at the beginning. It's like you are not going to be able to do all of this stuff on your own. But that's okay. That's the other thing we're talking about, like the CO creator economy, the that that job, you know, the number of creators that I watch now, who do have full time editors? That's cash, right? That, and that's not Andre cheap, right? 1530 bucks an hour, easy, Chris you know? And Andre I was looking to, I was looking to edit a 32nd video, 175 bucks. I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna buy Final Cut Pro. Chris But I mean, you know, I think for a lot of people, right, who have that skill set, it's a lot like, you look at building WordPress sites where it's like, yeah, it's 30 seconds, and it doesn't seem like that much, but if you want it to be really good and to function the way you know, to do what it's supposed to do, to look polished, it's going to take me a couple hours at least. Right? Sure, I Andre don't, I don't hate that. No, I know. I will tell you this. Yes, like, if you if somebody asked me, and I don't, I try, I don't, I try not to do websites because I don't like it. Chris You notice I did not ask you to do my dad's website? Yeah, I know question. I'll do this, and then when everything falls apart, Andre Yeah, cuz, because I now start out at like $3,000 because that's how much I don't like it, that's how I get people go, Oh, really, yeah. Chris Like, ridiculously cheap, if we're being honest. Yeah, like, I'm pretty sure back when I had my web development company, we were charging like 20 503 grand to build a website, and that was 1520, years ago. Andre So yeah, three grand for me is an easy way to get people to stop asking me to design their websites. That's fair. I've had people ask me, this is the funniest one. I've got this app idea, cool. So what I was thinking was, you could, you could build it, and then I will, I'll split the profits with you. It's like 50% Chris because I had the idea, Andre like, What are you talking about? Like, how much would you charge? I'm like, I'm thinking, like, X amount an hour, and we're just like, spitballing. You're probably like, 25k 30k in but I'm going to split the revenue with you, 50k I'm like, Yeah, I'm doing all the work. Chris But I had the idea. Yeah, no, we'll build it or go find somebody else to build it for you. Andre Go, go find somebody to like you can find people and in places to build it for, like, two or, you know, two to 6k. Yeah, that's not me, no. Chris And then my time apps gonna suck. It's gonna be like, the 12 other apps that are in that same category that that company's built in the last week, Andre yeah, it's like, Gee, and they take the same shit and, like, rebrand it, and now they're competing with you. And I'm just like, I don't know why. It's probably because somebody asked me that Chris I have been there with you in person when somebody, like, talked to you about this type of project. And yeah, and yeah. I mean, I look, I get it right. I've, I've had these conversations, especially with my dad, right, the number of times that my dad and I think there's something about that generation right? Where it's like, well, you just, you've got to get that great idea, if you've got the idea, then you can figure out the rest. But I think it's much more like, No, you actually got to kind of start from the like, you don't start it right? And I know, like, I'm not even going to say his name, right? But yeah, like, you gotta start, and then Andre it's so wild to me. Like people literally go like, yeah, I want you to work like, 300 hours for free. Chris Well, for for the the promise of future revenue, right deferred compensation. We'll call it, Andre I got a mortgage. Chris How about interest only that Andre is the wildest shit to me, when people like, Yo, but I got this idea, like, like, you're a developer, right? Like, yeah, but I'll give you 50% of revenue. Like, the fuck, I can take your idea and make it, like, really amazing and do it myself for free, if I thought it was worth X, like, it's not, Chris yeah, and, and that's, that's, that's why you aren't just like a developer for some company somewhere, right? Yeah, build whatever project they put in front of them. Andre It's like, the, are we talking about like? So I'll end it on this. We would sit in scrum meetings, which I agile, is bullshit. If you're developer, you know. You know, Chris they came up with the term scrum master. You notice I didn't say that leader, you know, not head of Scrum. No scrum master. Fuck yourselves. Andre Software development, it's got a tinge of racism. I did not make friends on the engineering team. I. It because these guys Chris got a couple of friends. Rick liked you, yeah? Rick like me. Andre There's okay, there's the Chris I literally forgot about Rick until I just said his name, Andre yeah, the guys with the Bachelor's of Science degrees or the real actual like comp sci guys, they like me, the Chris guys talking about developer Rick not see, yeah, just making sure Andre the guys that actually like grinded it out, they like me. Language, yeah, I was a get shit done, type of guy, right? You? Alright. So just imagine this, a customer says they have a bug. There would be 30% of our team that would bullshit and just like, write you in a whiteboard. And I would, as they're doing that, I'm looking at the logs and going, Oh, it's line 348, in this class right here. All we need to do is change this. And the looks and stares I would get of like, well, you're you didn't like, figure that Chris out. What are we supposed to do for the next 45 minutes now? Andre mean, that's that whole scrum process, agile like Kanban, waterfall, yeah, it's all just bullshit. Andre All right, I know. I know there, okay, I know there are developers out there that may not agree with me. I'm just telling you my experience, and I'm more of like, the type of guy that like, likes to get done and not dick around with it. Chris If that method or that framework works for you, that's fine, right? Awesome. Not. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use it. I'm just saying that the, I I think what we're both saying is that belief that this is what everybody should be using everywhere Speaker 2 is fucking stupid. Is ridiculous. Chris It's absolutely ridiculous. It completely depends on your tech stack, the type of software that you're developing, what your team looks like, like. All of those things play a factor in whether or not agile development is actually and it's not like, oh, maybe someday we can get to Agile development. Like agile development is not the end all be all. It's not like the Holy Grail where you could just have Java everywhere. Andre It's, it's, please God, no. Chris I was like, is he gonna miss Am I gonna sit by just threw up a little bit. Yeah, I'm glad that that Andre I will, I will, okay, maybe I'll end on this. You will not believe who actually likes Docker. Chris Hold the phones, stop the presses. Someone alert the media. You I'm sorry, sir, please explain. Andre Okay, the way Docker got introduced some odd a while ago. Was horrendous. Chris Yeah, horror. That was like, 2010 2011 Andre Yeah, ish, right. It just got pushed down. Everybody. It's like, AI, basically, that fucking whale was everywhere, and you couldn't stop it. And it's like, everybody wanted to put everything in a container. It was like, stop with your fucking container. Chris Everybody was exhibit, I heard you like containers, so I put a container in your container. It Andre was driving me fucking crazy. And I was just like, All right, so this is what made me just go ilk, the way D zone was set out. There were four servers that covered every Geo, and I was in a meeting or over I don't know how I heard this, but they were like, we should just do our all of our CI CD with Docker. And you know what happened? It broke Chris everything. Wasn't there a certain person whose name we shall not mention that suggested that in particular, Andre yeah, it was fucking stupid. It's like the shit works, like our pipeline is good, and you're just introducing new fucking variables to manage, Chris literally, to give you something to do, because you haven't written 30 lines of code since you started here a year ago. Andre FUCKING GOD DAMN. Fuck you Frank, Chris I said he shall not be named. A Andre certain picture of Voldemort here. So but recently I've been using I've been revamping my home network and home lab. Slowly, Docker is very useful when you use it properly. Chris Yes, just like so many things, right, a screwdriver is great unless you have to pound in a nail, Andre right? So, just Chris like a knife is great unless you have to unscrew a screw this Andre and get stitches like an idiot, if it explained it or you don't clean your the glass of your oven with a hammer. Chris I was not cleaning I was pounding the hinge back in the place anyway, like we all make mistakes, that's what makes us human, and it's about learning and moving on and growing and doing life with each other Andre or how boring your life would be if I hadn't come in and started smashing ovens and stabbing myself repeatedly. I remember like, I think at one point I was on the phone with you when you told you, like, No, this dumbass had to smash this up and he had to go buy another man. Andre Well, we're glad you joined us. It's good to be back. Chris It's great to be back. Are you kidding me? Yeah, this is fantastic. Look at how good this corner Andre he's laundering money on Chris his hometown. Speaker 2 I This is the part of the episode where we have to say goodbye, leave a like or comment, subscribe, but you don't Chris need to do those things. Stay safe, most important, stay salt. See you next time on the Chris and Speaker 2 Andre show you.