The Todd Herman Show
A Hacking Blindspot In Our Election Software Coded By Ukrainians And Pro-Lifers Are Causing A Diaper Shortage? Zach Abraham Joins Ep-1829
So The Politico, a right wing organization, is spreading misinformation. They reported there's some troubling security bugs found in some cyber security election software. It's just a little hacking blind spot. It's not a serious thing and the coders are Ukrainian. Ha!
Plus, the people at CNBC say the peak interest rate error is over. Here's what investors are watching. We'll talk with Zach Abraham about that. And also, there's a diaper shortage and you won't believe why and the solution to this.
What does God’s Word say?
Romans 14:10-1210 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[b]12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Episode Links:
- Hacking blind spot: States struggle to vet coders of election software In New Hampshire, a cybersecurity firm found troubling security bugs — and the Ukrainian national anthem — written into a voter database built with the help of an overseas subcontractor.
- Is the Fed ‘sleepwalking into a policy mistake?’: Abrdn analyst calls for faster easing of rates
- The peak interest rate era is over. Here’s what investors are watching
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- Duration:
- 52m
- Broadcast on:
- 06 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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Get all the exciting details on the 2024 Chevy Blazer EV at your Colorado Chevy dealer today. Learn more about EV tax credits and take advantage of current offers going on now. So the Politico, you know, they're a right-wing organization spreading the misinformation. They reported there's just, you know, some troubling security bugs found in some cybersecurity election software stuff, the elections and software. It's just a little hacking blind spot. No, it's not a serious thing. And the coders are Ukrainian. Ha! Look, does that make sense? Plus, the people at CNBC say the peak interest rate era is over. Here's what investors are watching. We'll talk with Zach Abraham about that. And also, there's a diaper shortage, and you won't believe why and the solution to this. Maybe you will. We'll talk about this with the help of our YouTube channel, youtube.com/attodherman and with the good graces of God Almighty. The Todd Herman Show is 100% disapproved by big pharma technocrats and tyrants everywhere. Now, from the high mountains of free America, here's the Emerald City Exile. Todd Herman. Today is the day the Lord has made in these are the times, so which God has decided we shall live. It's wise council day, even though I'm dressed in my beach clothes. It's wise council day. I got the note from your team, Zach. I'll tell them we'll edit this out. And then we'll go through it, only spend about 16 hours to edit me into the wise council shirts, et cetera. We got the note from your team. How are you, brother? Doing good, man. No complaints. Good. I don't know if you saw this, but you know, there's this country of Brazil, you've been there. I've never been there. I've always wanted to go. Yeah. But sure have been there. So they have a judge there who's kind of seized, controlled the country. And he's banned Twitter dash X as to shut it down. The so-called attorney general of Missouri, Keith Ellison, he's the guy who used to walk around with the Antifa handbook. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's he's congratulating Brazil. He says, uh, Alberto Brazil, congratulations. Well done. I mean, he didn't come out and say for the censorship, but we obviously know what this means. Right. And nothing says democracy, like for a century free speech, but so, uh, right, have you ever gotten that you can't say that from someone when you public speak or you do your podcast, your radio show? You forgot that you can't say that. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. For instance, I got a, I got an email because when, uh, when COVID was coming out, I referred to it as the Kung Fu flu and I got a bunch of emails saying it was racist. And so I went on and issued a quote, unquote apology that had me refer to it as the Kung Fu flu about five more difficult times just because I'm just like, get out of here. I had, um, for a while, uh, when I was doing the, what did I start with after a drive in in Seattle and did the morning show, I had a prerecorded apology and it came with some sappy music. You know, I just want to say I've learned a lot in this process and to everyone I've made for hurt, uh, I want to say I'm just, I'm just going to, you know, attempt to do better. Uh, we can only learn from this. So I'm reaching out to members of the harm communities and, and so we, we had this kind of generic thing and then I'd have my producer put in just this terrible bad voice. So I've reached out to members of the community and it was just not my voice at all. And the whole point is you never say, sorry, I've learned a lot. I've reflected. I've met with some members of the affected communities, you know, and you never have the words. I'm sorry. Leave your mouth. You foot. I apologize. Uh, no, um, well, I mean, there's times, right? I, I, um, yeah, I'm just, I'm just a huge fan of apologies. I feel like it's, um, especially when they're, you know, when they're genuine, yeah, I feel like they can just, I, there's, there's, uh, I was actually talking with somebody this the other night. I am such a sucker for apologies. You know, meaning somebody comes up and says, Amy, and I did your dirty and I'm sorry about it. Yeah. Done. Game over. Good. We're good. You know what I mean? Like, just, uh, it's always been set to respect her of it. And I think it, I think it's a, um, I think it's an admirable quality. Yeah. Like necessary to maintain. Well, I mean, I've been married for 20 years. So I, I feel like that kind of predicates you guys, I think both people do, right? I mean, yeah. Right. I'll have to really, and part of that's, you know, meaning it, I've never asked you this. I'll ask you this later in the show, but think about the worst, um, screwing you ever gotten business. Sorry for the bad language, but, but, um, yeah, because I had this, um, something happened to me in my internet radio startup and it was a phenomenal lesson, but I also got this moment where I got to be the guy. This guy had to come to to get something done at Microsoft. And, oh, the guy who screwed me, oh, oh, and I tried it not, not to make it or interesting, but let's talk about that. I want, I want you to think about this. It takes a lot for me to trust a product to the degree that I will put it on auto ship. In fact, this is the first year I've ever put products on auto ship and there are only a core set of products that I do that with. One of them is mass zines because I've noticed when I don't use mass seams, I'm uncomfortable. I have digestive discomfort if you know what I mean, but I also learned more about why I love this product. It delivers to your body 1,200% more amino acids than simply digesting food will do. That means you're getting more food for your money and for someone like me who's gone through a lot of effort to drop fat and to build muscle even at my age, this helps preserve muscle. It also helps you enjoy a diet of any sort, even if you're not dieting, paleo, high carb, low carb, protein based, 40, 30, 30, 50, 25, 25. The pills I take three times a day make this all very, very easy and the quality is unquestioned because it comes from bioptimizer. So go now to bioptimizers.com/tod to get your bottle of mass seams with 10% off. Don't let poor digestion hold you back from reaching your full potential. Use mass seams. Go to bioptimizers.com/tod. Start your journey to better health today. Zach, there was a thing the political reported and it's, I mean, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Number one, we've got Ukrainians coding software for us, for elections, cyber security. So there's that. I think that's a good idea and they decided then to leave in some kind of Easter eggs in the code and I'll back doors and such and one of the funny things they did is they put in the Ukrainian national anthem right into the election software just to let us know, hey, by the way, there's a lot of mere losses. That's actually kind of funny. Right. But of course, what that means is, look, we hit this in here and you didn't know it. And even the political is calling it a hacking blind spot that if they can do this and leave these holes, well, they'd leave other holes, right? I, I, I don't know how any rational human being draws any other conclusion. Right. Right. I mean, come on. And in our election system, honestly, and this, okay, here's the part we can't put on YouTube heads up, hey, production team, we're doing that part, we can't put on the tubes. Is there anything in our election system that's actually set up so that you could actually prove fraud that there, is there any bit of it that you don't even have the base data? Yeah. You know, you know, it's one of the things that I think that I haven't heard anybody really talk about this, but it's something that I've found kind of amazing and scary and mind blowing from the very beginning where any system that you don't have the ability to audit, right? Like the, the ambiguity around it all while I'm sitting there going, wait a second. There isn't a master tape, some, like no one's like, come on, like, and this isn't the way systems like this are designed, right? So like, why is it this is the one system? Now, I mean, I think there's some obvious answers, but why would, where's the redundancy? Where's the ability to look through? Where are the security? Like, I, you know, and just to go to the people that here's what's wrong in this country, right? Like, we need to have some music when you start a sentence like that. Hold on. Hold on, Marie. Here's what's wrong with this country, Zack Abraham. Yeah. Well, like, it's the angst back and forth, the two sides, you know, the two sides that really drives me nuts, where if you take a step back and if you quote, unquote, believe in democracy, and if 40 to 50% of the voting populace in this country think they got jobs, why would you not be a proponent of a very easy way to go through and verify? Well, because it was done correctly. I'm like, that's not what you were saying in George Bush was elected in 2000. And I'll sit back and say the exact same thing about then. Again, reasons that we should have, this should be built in to every system we use should be a really easy way to go back and check this stuff. And I mean, everybody knows that we have the technology and the capability to do it. There's a lack of a will and the lack of a will sort of points to motive, right? Like me. Right. Why would you? Right. I had to fly once and I had lost my ID and I had to make this flight. I'm like, well, this isn't going to happen. There's no stinking way. This is happening. But I go to the airport. It's a business trip. I have to make the trip. Here's what's happened. I've lost my ID. And I was premier of premier, you know. What's your number? This? Okay. Home address. And your credit cards and phone number, and it took about an hour, but they got me on the plane. Now, if I was Hispanic and it skipped over the line in the country and had a bunch of MS-13 tattoos or that special line, have you seen that? The MS-13 line at the airports? Well, no, but I'm assuming they give you, not only they get you on the plane, they give you a free lunch and $1,500 on a debit card. Yeah. Then you get to keep the plane. Right. So, you can do this, but here's, I'm going to relate this financially, and they'll talk about some financial news and they get this, like the biggest screw job you've read business. This would be like you, let's say that you are thinking of buying a company, or no, better way. Chief investment officer bulwark, you're thinking of investing in a company. And you guys are sitting down, you get the spreadsheets, they sent you the P and L, you guys pull it open, you're going, okay, wow, look at this growth. Wow. It's impressive, sensical, cost of goods, and then you go, hold on a second. What currencies is this in? Because there's no dollars, science, and you call the company, yeah, hey, listen, we got the financials. What currencies this in? Well, that's the thing, is we don't track it. Oh, hold on, so some of this is rubles, some of this is dollars. Do you think there's dollars? Yeah, we got some Taiwan, Taiwan bot in there, or, or, or, or, Tyler, Ty bot, you know, right. Am I wrong or when you don't have the base of, hey, did you check their ID? They're, sorry, they're what? Well, yeah, well, especially for a system like voting, right, meaning if, if, if, like push all the politics aside, right, if we're sitting down to, to, to, to buys and design a voting system, yeah, right. By definition, integrated into the system is going to be an ability to, you know, there are going to be any fraud capabilities. There's going to be alarms built in there if somebody steps over something. But more importantly, there's going to be very easy audits in there because you have to verify what's going, it's just, it is the most purposeful, uh, lack of ingenuity I've ever seen, like meaning, you know, and, and it's the same, like you said with the IDs, right? Like this is not a political issue, guys. You, you don't have to be a conspiracy theory theorist to sit there and ask yourself, wait a second, why wouldn't you want photo IDs to vote? Well, I, I took a phone call once from a very, very irate guy on Russia's show, God rest of the maha years ago. And this guy come and goes, you know what? I hate about guys like you. Here's what I hate. You don't have any ideas on how to make this better. All election fraud, elections stolen, you know, if I have some ideas, will you listen to them? Yeah, but you don't have any ideas. All right. Here's my idea. Hold the election counting in casinos. Check the ID like you do when you go to a casino. Count the ballots with the eyes in the sky. You can spotlight every signature and compare instantly to a database. Yeah. Do you finger print facial recognition for ID? All of it right there. Yep. There it is. Done. And, and, and I'm sorry, but here's the other thing like this is, this is such a straw man argument on so many levels, because if you do not have the wherewithal, the determination or the ability to get a photo ID, then you shouldn't be voting. There was. And I don't care what anybody else says. You're not alienating anybody. It's most ridiculous statement. I know. No, wait. So your wife has ID? Yeah. You would. She just got it. She could vote in the upcoming election. But did you see? There was. Oh my gosh. I should have pulled this video, but it didn't know the discussion would go this way. There was a, a great video done in Harlem where white guy went after Harlem and said, Hey, how you doing? Hey, listen, do you know where the DMV's at? Yeah. Yeah. It's right there. It's six blocks up. That we're going to get an ID. Yeah. You have ID? Yeah. I have ID. I live in New York City. I have to have ID to live here. What do you think about politicians saying black people don't know how to get ID? What? You have to have ID them. Every single black person, they knew where the DMV was. Yeah. And every black person said, Oh, that's, it's insulting. And of course it is. I want to get to some financial stuff because it fits into me. There are so many things that people believe in this country, like that, like our elections are safe and secure. That's one thing they believe. Those are the things they believe. We'll talk about this in relation to these interests because you got to help me understand this real quick. When Zach came into the studio when he was here in the high mountains of free America, he walked in and said, and I quote, wow, it smells like a thunderstorm in here. And I said joking, do you ever watch the podcast or listen to this? No, I get it. I get his advice, but I'm just kind of surprised by it. If you have an Airbnb, if you have any business where the public enters, if you have public restrooms, don't tell the guy, share the space with with the recording studio downstairs. It's a world class recording studio. It's accident. It's beautiful guitars. His bathroom stumped to high stinking heaven. So gross. I just wanted to go around the neighborhood, just apologize because you could, I could go get, you know what? I should've gone to get the Eden Pier Oxley to slammed it in there and just let the just stinking bathroom just degrade into filth. But I didn't. I actually got out a Lysol wrap and or thing and cleaned and rubbed the floor in any case. You don't have to do that. If you have an Airbnb or rental hotels, you run businesses that smell bad, or you just want your house to smell absolutely fresh when people walk into it, don't waste your money in an air filter because you're going to have to replace the filters every single stinking year for two to four hundred bucks, get the Oxyleaf two thunderstorm device whole home coverage. I'll save you $200, plug it into the wall in about three minutes, you will smell ozone because those O three molecules go into the air and they eliminate the molecules that cause bad smells by bonding to them and changing their molecular structure. Go to EdenPewdeals.com, enter code Todd three and there is a $200 savings and when people walk in your house, they'll probably say, wow, it smells like there was a thunderstorm in here. And you can say, that's right, the Todd Ermensheble. We're working on one of these devices, Zach, that every hour when it produces enough ozone it just goes with a Todd Ermensheble. I think people want that in their houses, right? Sure. Help me understand this. I got to get this is the Fed sleepwalking into a policy mistake, Arboden ARBN analyst calls for faster easing of rates. And then I read in the same stinking research period, the peak interest rate is over. Here's what investors are watching. This comes from CNBC, September, the U.S. Federal Reserve is all but guaranteed to join the European Center Bank, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and cutting key rates analysts are eyeing a broadly supportive environment for equities to the rest of the year and beyond. But one of several key risks, currency markets will continue to focus on short term rates expectations and the extent and pace of money, monetary easing. I love that phrase, monetary easing. So help me break this down and understand it. Are they sleepwalking into a policy mistake or let me show you what I've learned at Zach Abraham University, they only have two levers to pull and they've trapped themselves in this hell. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, are they sleepwalking into a policy error? Look, by definition, that's conjecture. So if this guy knows the future, then he can make that statement. And his argument is they're not cutting enough. What I would say to him is based on what data, there's this note. So that might be his opinion, he may end up being correct, but there's no data that backs that up. And here's the problem, let's have a little bit of grace and understanding for the Fed as much as I pound on them, which I think they fully deserve it. But to be fair, you have to make policy decisions somehow. So the Fed would much rather respond a little too late to things than respond prematurely to something that doesn't occur. So when you look at what we're dealing with, when you look at the deficits, when you look at unemployment, stock markets at all time highs, housing prices at all time highs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, does it look like the economy is slowing? It clearly is, okay? But you can't, what is the risk here? The real risk is inflation ramping again and going out of control. Like we've talked about on this show, and I was just talking to clients about it yesterday. Look, we all sit there and we fear because for our entire lives, bad negative economic outcomes meant falling prices, okay? Rising prices are a much bigger problem, okay? Much, much harder to deal with. And so we should always look at inflation should be, and it's really not, and this is one of the biggest policy mistakes I think the Fed does make, which is we should be more concerned about inflation than we are deflation, right? And deflation caused serious problems, but at the end of the day, deflation is your currency value going up against other assets. How many countries around the world have gone under because their currency was too valuable? Yeah, right. Nobody. Now, I can create some really ugly economic outcomes, bread lines, we saw what happened in the Great Depression. I'm not saying it's nothing we need to be worried about, but inflation is the real threat, okay? When you're sitting there saying that the Fed should cut harder right now, that's based on where you think things are going. There's just no bad data to back that up. So I completely disagree with them. I think it would be a policy mistake if they cut quickly, and I think there's a big thing to say that even if they only cut 25 basis points right now, where everything is at, that's sort of a preemptive move too, because you're not getting, we're not getting signs from the labor market that you need a rate cut. You're getting signs of things slowing down, but remember, they needed to slow down. We're not going to economy that's going to grow at 8 to 9% a year, right? They said that's ridiculous, and if you grow that hot, it means you have a bunch of inflation. So no, I'll throw this in the pile of people talking completely out of their back sides with absolutely nothing to back it up for, because like I said, I don't know outcomes. I can't tell the future. He may end up being proven correct, but there's just nothing in the data that would warrant the Fed to cut more. As a matter of fact, I think they're a little premature on the rate cut. I understand it, but I think the debate at the Fed, and to be fair to them, it's kind of sounded like this is what the debate has been, which is should we cut or not. These people calling for emergency rate cuts, it's ridiculous. I mean, you've got a stock market trading at 3rd, I mean, housing prices at all time highs, stock prices at all time highs, gold at all time highs, unemployment at 4.1%. There's absolutely nothing in the data that would warrant a more aggressive cut, except for one thing, November 3rd, well, now, okay, that's right, because it got willing, there will be a November 3rd, we're going to do you know the ballots are going out next week in some states next stinking week, the ballots are going to, right, right, right, right early and often. If they juice the economy, they drop the interest rates, this is that's like snort and cocaine straight up your beak. Yeah, yeah, well, and then like I said, the other thing that you got to consider here, and this is why that guy you just read, I'm sitting there just shaking my head, dude, you're insane. Like the last time the Fed did this, that's what created 99, 2000, that's what created that was the, that was really the seed corn for that whole, you know, you're, you're, I mean, you're cut right now, even if they just cut 25 bibs, they're cutting into an environment where you've got full employment, record price, record highs in housing, record highs in the stock market, it could get, it could get absolutely nuts, so yeah, it's, I just could not disagree with that guy anymore. So this is all folks can affect your retirement to understand that your retirement portfolio was not built in all likelihood, your 10 to 15 years, five, 10, 15 years from retirement. It wasn't constructed for times such as these, where there are no rules, and the rules are, there are no rules. So that accounts that you've been creating and you've been living and you've been counting on could be set up to be really, really risky. And this guy, Zach Abraham at Boer Capital Management is obsessed with risk management by actively managing all portfolios, which can reduce risk and volatility. That's where my money's at with Zach and most of it, he won't let me put it all there because he says, what if I have a bad year? See, that's risk management that's being consistent. A lot of people wouldn't do that. They'd say, give us all your money and your kids to plus your house and all the other things. They just didn't do that at Boer. He's putting on a free live webinar. This is the 26th of September and it's really going to be about these current events and about how it creates risk and how Boer could navigate this. These are free, but you have to register to attend. Go to knowyourriskradio.com that's KNOW know your risk radio.com or call 866-779-RISC. He'll answer questions, Zach's a teacher at heart, and if you come away from this saying, hey, I can do this on my own, he'd leave you with his blessings, go get her, go get it done. Maybe you can do this. For me, I'm not on the job training when retirement is just running the corner. So it's knowyourriskradio.com. And now because the government urges us to do this, a kind disclaimer from my friend Russ Simper. Investment Advisory Services offered through Trek Financial LLC and SEC registered investment advisor, the opinions expressed in this program, are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. Any references to performance of securities are thought to be materially accurate and actual performance may differ investments involved risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results, Trek 24308. There it is. Thank you, Russ. Zach, here's a headline for your fund finance. And tell me if this indicates anything to you in the way of worldview. It's from Yahoo Finance. America is facing a diaper crisis. And the anti-abortion movement may not be helping. I just, I, I, I, I'm sorry. I imagine this sometimes and it makes me a bad person. I'm just imagining judgment day and I'm next in line. And I know, you know, like the Lord Jesus, there's probably not a line because he can do all things at once, but I'm imagining this line and, and I'm watching and the Lord Jesus looks up at me like, Hey, bud, you're next. You're next. And, and he's saying to someone, okay, but why all the abortions? Why did you kill all the babies? He goes, look, dude, diaper shortage. There was a stinking diaper shortage. I had to kill the babies and the Lord's response would be exactly what, like, that's why you're not coming in. It would have to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, there, I don't think there's, I don't think that there's a problem we current currently face in this country that cannot be fixed by murdering more babies, right? Like that's. Do tell. You listen to these people talk about it and you're just going, people pro-creating so that our society lives on is the problem. I, like, and here's, here's one thing I was going to say this, and this is a warning for everybody because I've, I've even seen it with, with some of our clients. There is a big disconnect right now in the way that people are viewing markets and financial matters and the way they're viewing the culture as a whole. I cannot tell you how many people I know or even, like I said, even clients of ours who are sitting there going, we came to you for risk management. Nothing makes sense. Everything's all up there. But why aren't we in this stock? Why aren't we in that stock? Why aren't we chasing more? And you sit there and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't be of two minds. Okay. Why are you here? Why are you talking to us? Okay. If you think it's all because we're going off the rails and we're not making any sense as a culture and you see our government doing irresponsible things, what you're telling me is it shocks you that irresponsible things look better right now. Right? Like, you know, like perfect example of this last two days, over the last two trading days, gold is flat, maybe slightly up over the last two days, market's been getting annihilated, price of oil has been hit hard. Okay. So gold is slightly up, price of oil gets hit hard. That's Nirvana for gold mining companies, right? Right. Input costs are going down, thing they sell is going up in price, right? It's Nirvana. Okay. Price of the average gold company has been slammed by five to six percent over the last couple of days. Right. And people people are like, why? Why do we own that? And I go, they go, it's down. I go, yeah, I know. They're like, but why do we own it? I go, because they're making record amounts of profit and we're buying them for pennies on the dollar and they're like, but yeah, Zach, it's not going up. And I go, do you think that if this corporation continues to do things the way that they're doing them and continues to generate ever higher profits and margins and revenues, do you think that that stock price is going to keep going down? Okay. Are you looking at reality? Are you really surprised that we live in a culture that isn't looking at real value? Does that surprise you? Do you also think that to end up on the right side of things out of this period of insanity however long it lasts, do you think doing the things that everybody else is doing is going to get you there? Or do you think it's going to require some discipline? Do you think you're going to have to hold on to things that maybe aren't being appreciated right now because society's lost its mind and it has no moral tether, right? What do you think? The other thing, have you learned that concept in life that ending up in the best place is often made up of making the hardest choices, exercising the most discipline, right? Does it always feel good? Does getting up in the morning and going to work out always feel good? Why do you do it? Because it puts you in a good place at the end of the deal, right? Investing's the same way. If you're in the right things right now, you're probably pulling your hair out. I know we are too, okay? But at the same time, why would you expect the rules of that game to be any different than the rest of the culture? And if you want to raise the best kids, if you want to have a successful marriage, if you want to have a successful portfolio, guys, I'll tell you this right now, a really easy proxy that you should tell whatever society and culture is telling you to do to get that done, do the opposite, right? It's almost that simple right now. It doesn't mean it's going to feel good right now, right? Because we're in the Dr. Stroop, feel good type of deal, right? The only thing you can't stand for is telling somebody that something they're doing is inappropriate, right? It's an Alice in Wonderland deal. We can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast, right? And yet we turn around and go, "Well, but why is it my portfolio performing up to the S&P 500?" And go, "Well, because it's on crack." And we're looking for real value, right? We remember years like 1999 when the NASDAQ was up 100% and Berkshire Hathaway was down 25%, right? Why? Because it was real. It had real things going on. It wasn't just conjecture and smoke. And I'll tell you right now, man, I just, it's one of those things you know. And is it... No, it stinks. I want to see stuff go up every single day, right? But what you know, and we should all know this inherently, is in periods of times of insanity, doing the right thing feels very painful. Why do we do it? Because it always ends up good, right? Right, right. And Sam can be set a culture and I mean, I just, everybody's lost their minds and including people that get it culturally are buying into it over and you're sitting there and go, "Guys, no. No, you know." Right. If you're being of two minds. If you're getting it culturally, men are not women. The elections are not secure. The FDA and the CDC are not our friends, nor is pharma. But dang it, that NVIDIA, man. There's no... Right. Right. That's so huge in that little gold company. Why would you? Right. Or this example, I'm not buying an electric car. They can do all the mandates in the world. They're getting rid of the gas stoves. I'm not playing, but you want me to buy local utilities, regional utilities? Right. Right. Well, yeah, because see, the government's forcing people to do these things and these local utilities are going to... But did you see what NVIDIA did? Yeah. Right. I'll give you this because there's a less complicated example of this in my life is there are days where I go pretty nuts on caffeine. And I don't do it as much as I used to. But no, honestly, like the other day we did my birthday workout and my birthday workout is always a major, major workout. This year it was a pleasant surprise of a 1,967 meter run in the air runner with my seal fit pack on and then... Good times. Yeah. Good times. Eight rounds of 24 overhead squats and presses and pullups and see burpees, box jumps, something else. And then the buyout was a row and good times had to get that done in under 57 minutes and all that. So it's good times. And on that day, I juiced a little bit on the caffeine. So get done with that. Tell coach what's next. I'm on for something else. And I'm heading home, Zach. I'm thinking, you know what? I'm going to go for a five mile run. I'm so ready. No, no. I'm going to swim. No, I'm going to swim and lift. And I'm pulling in. I'm going to swim and lift. I'm going to get my kettlebells. I'm headed down to the beach, swim, lift, swim, lift, swim, lift. I go inside and go, you know what? I got to eat first. So I sit down and I eat. You know what? I'm just going to sit down for a second. And then I can feel it. Caffeines leaving me. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I get a decision to make. Now I got to chase the caffeine. I'm like going to the stove, heating up some coffee. And I'm drinking. I can tell. I'm late. I missed a wave. And next thing you know, I'm sitting to my wife. I'm taking a nap. And it always fools me. I always think I'm at the crest, man. I'm going to ride this thing. And you can see the financial metaphor for this, right? 100%. Yeah. I think people can learn a lot from how people who are wise and smart and have been learned through, you know, hard things that have happened to you. I want to ask you in a second to talk about to the degree that you can, like the worst screwing you ever took in business and how that ended and what you learned from it. And then I'll relate this story. I think you get a kick out of this thing that happened to me back in the internet radio days. Probably not the worst screwing ever took. That was when I learned that there was a member of my board of directors who wasn't voting his own shares. He hadn't invested in his own money. He'd actually, another venture capital firm had backed him. And that venture capital firm had a competing interest and caused this guy to say no to a sick, no, like 60 to $80 million acquisition from Microsoft. It only would have put like 12 million in my pocket. So right. It's no big. It's not life changing money. Take care. But we'll talk about this in a second. Zach, and I have some friends in common. Some of them have passed on. Some are still very much here. One of our friends in common is Tim Crookshank, the founder and CEO of Bone Frog Coffee. But a while since we talked about Tim, I need to check in with him. You know, he lost his wife Liz a few months ago. Coffee company lives on. His girls had stepped in and really stepped up, writing notes to customers, et cetera. I do want to tell you something about Bone Frog as you head into the winter time or the fall is if you have trouble waking up in this period of time. I was just mentioning caffeine. I am a little bit juiced today because I've had two of the door kicker roasts. Door kicker is a light roast. And if you'd come to me before door kicker was created and said, try light roast coffee. I would laugh at you, point at you, call you names, belittle you, disrespect you, perhaps kick you in the ankle. But having had the door kicker brand, I can tell you now I'm a convert. It's a light roast, but it's very tasty, non bitter. And it has the highest caffeine load of all the bone frog coffees. It's one of my favorite roasts. And then again, if you're still in hot weather and it was like 92 degrees earlier, maybe 89 when I was out taking some sun in North Idaho, there's still the ice coffee. You put some pouches in water in your fridge overnight and you get an incredibly rich ice coffee, go to bonefrogcoffee.com/tod. Use promo code Todd to get 10% off your first purchase, 15% off subscription coffee because of who Tim is, retired Navy seal, buds instructor, every single bag says God country team on it. And bone frog itself is the insignia of fallen Navy seals, bonefrogcoffee.com/tod. So Zach, I know we can't name them all, but I've had a, I've actually had a very, you know, in business, I've rarely taken really hard screwings, really just got messed with or cheated that it wasn't cheating on my board of directors. And that guy apologized to me later. I should have told you and probably he was breaking some sort of a doucheery thing and didn't tell me. But there was one guy who came and effectively tried to steal our company. I'll tell you about that. You tell me the worst kind of like screw job you ever had in business. You know, it's funny because it's really a double sided coin. So it was a total screw job. And yet it was the best thing that ever happened to me. So before we started Bullwork, I had a partner that I was working with. And we had very complimentary skills. And so he was doing well on his own, but when we started working together, the results were really pretty amazing for both of us. And it was one of those deals where the excitement for on his side lasted as long as to where I think that he thought that he had learned from me, kind of, you know what, now you might rock the table and I ended up getting a call from him when I was in the hospital hospital with my youngest child, about three weeks after he was born, he developed pretty brutal case RSV. And spent, and spent seven days in the, in the NICU. And it was while I was in the hospital with my, my son, no, yeah, that he called me and said he wanted to part ways. Yeah. And. Wow. Did you say, do you know I'm in the hospital with my son? No, no, it caught me off guard, but it was also one of those moments where you went, okay, I see, I see who you are and what you're about. And this really stinks for me, but yeah, I'm a big believer in that whole, when somebody tells you who you are, believe them, you know, and so now I looking back on it, I'm actually proud of it. I didn't get bitter about it, didn't, didn't, didn't freak out at him, just went to go on my, on my own way and then eventually took my experience from that, from what I learned from that deal. My wife and I started bulwark. So like I said, it's, it was not cool. Yeah. It was, it was a pretty low blow. Yeah. Um, but you know, it ended up being, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. So I, it's one of those deals you can't really, you know, yeah, I always feel like that's how things work. Like, I feel like that's how things work out a lot, you know, which is, there's so many times where these unwelcome changes come into life and you look back on it a few years later and you're like, thank God. Well, it sounds like you were unequally yoked. I mean, that's not a very Christian behavior, right? Yeah. No. Well, and that's not what that, that's not what that person would have said. Oh. Thereable. Yeah. But this is business. Right. So, but that's it. You, you, there is no, this is business in church's church. No, I agree. No, it can't work that way or you're not really walking through Lord Jesus because Lord Jesus, when he saw the temple and they were doing all the trading in the temple, he didn't go well. Yeah. Right. I mean, you better, you got to be able to raise money for the temple. So it's okay. He didn't say that at all. Well, yeah. I mean, I, I've always despised that when people say that because you know, it's just business, it's not personal. How I put bread on my table for my family is very personal to me. Yeah. And I think it's personal to everybody. And yeah, more importantly, I think it's like the ultimate morality, like on Taylor, right, is don't tell me how you behave. Let me see you. Let me see how you behave when money's online, you know, right. Let me see your behavior when money's on the line or it's existential. You're under great periods of stress, then, then I know you have morals, right? If it's morals go away during times of stress, then I know that you have stress and I know that you have some things you like to do, you prefer to do, but you don't actually have morals. Yeah. Right. Yeah, because pressure and heat unveils character, right? Exactly. It's who you really are. Exactly. And so you're not, you're not the decisions you make and the way you act when everything's rolling your way. It's like, let me see under some pressure and under the gun. And then that's, you know, and I, I teach that to my football kids all the time, which I'm like, Hey, the reason we drill this, the reason we work this in so much is when you're tired, when we're down, when things are up against us, this is our real DNA. And this is will be what comes out. Yep. Right. You know, if, if, if that's your real DNA, it's going to show up eventually, you know, I'm getting ready for a seal fit, which is just over two weeks away. And I know, I know there's going to be periods of time in there where I'm going to have to turn to my cohort of guys and go guys, I'm, I feel like I'm going to quit. Yeah. And we've had this discussion up front. Our coach has said, Hey, don't be the guy that hides that. You hide that. You still want it. It builds up in your mind. And he, I don't know that he's just a Christian or not. I haven't asked the question. I guess I could. They know I am. It's obviously in my bio and I talk about it all the time, but I want to turn to the Lord, the Holy Spirit, but I have these men around me. And he said, be the one to step up and say, Hey guys, I am feeling like I'm going to quit. Let your team talk. You know, no, let me take your rock for a bit. Like I'm good. It's a long rock. I'll carry, you know, you recover. Maybe you get me later. That's something that we need to be able to do as well as morals is confessing this weakness. Right? I'm at a period of weakness and I need your help. I need you to step in. I need to lean on you a little bit. That's part of what they're trying to get across in this experience. So let me tell you mine. When I had the internet radio company and with CEO, we had great backers, Jay Perfisher Durvenson, Wasatch Ventures and Utah Ventures and some other companies, VCs. We were at this period of time where the company didn't super well. We had revenues. Other people didn't have. We had ad insertion technology. Other people didn't have. And I got a call from one of the big, big funds in Silicon Valley. We're deeply interested. We'd like to see if we could lead your B round. Okay. So I fly down and we have this meeting and the guy takes me aside. His name was Peter and he takes me aside and says, Hey, I got a question for you. Are you set on being CEO for life? I go, No, in fact, I don't think I'm the right guy to take the company to the next stage. I'm an inventor, a product guy. I'm actually, I'm thinking about bringing in a CEO who could actually grow the company, right? It's a different stage of company. Okay. There's a guy here. He's, he's going to join our fund and invest some money, but he's going to just be observing. Okay. So this guy was a big deal in the radio business and I recognize his name right away. So he sits through all the meetings and it's very complimentary, et cetera. And so we get done. Peter says, You know what? We like it. We like it a lot. We'd like to fly up Monday and take a look at, Hey, by the way, what do you think of Eric? Oh, it seems great. What would you think of him as CEO? Look at that. Interesting. Don't know. They come up Monday and he brings his chief technical guy. And I'm, we set the meetings, we have to set the schedule, Eric's going to go out of these meetings. Peter and the tech guy, they're going to go out of meetings. I get a email from my CTO, Todd. This guy wants a copy of our source code. An actual copy. Yes. Uh, no, absolutely not. Well he says he needs it to make an evaluation. No, absolutely not. Then I get a note from my longest term, best friend in whose home I lived, whose dad taught me the radio business. You have to get in here. Eric is trying to take the company away from you. So he'd gone behind the scenes and had drawn my friends together, lifelong friends, and said, look, let's be honest, Todd doesn't do anything here. You guys are the one who built this, you run it. Why is he soaking up all the equity? My friend said, you're an idiot. Like Todd designed this whole thing, everything here came out of his mind. We built it for him, but he absolutely designed it. He is the mind behind this. And this is, you got to get in here. He's saying he wants you out. So I go knock on the door, open it, Eric, get out. What I know what you're doing. Get out. I go and get the VC and the tech guy, Leaf, he turns it on and points to me, you're making a big mistake. I'm like, we know what you're doing. They later went and launched a company and they took our name and put it all over their website in their code. So you couldn't see it publicly, but in their source code. So anytime someone was searching for the dial, they were trying to make that in there. We saw that right away. Then I get a phone call from EarthLink. We had a huge deal with EarthLink. When provided them internet radio, they provided his distribution. The boss lady calls me from EarthLink. She goes, Todd, I know we've got a five year contract. I know it's exclusive, but I got to tell you, Erickson here, and he's offered me $1 million to be my internet radio provider. I go, so hold on a second, he's offering to pay you to provide a service. Yes, take the money. Up front, all of it, give him six months to launch to your satisfaction. It has to have all the functionality of our company. All of it. You're going to let me out of the contract, I'm going to send you an email. Here's what I'm going to let you do. She took the money. Six months later, he doesn't have anything near what we have. She comes back to me and I say, I'll take some of that Eric money and we'll use that to do some promotions. She gave some of that to me. So long story, years later, I'm at Microsoft and I was General Manager of Media Strategy Monetization. That was a field title. It was really just a kind of Senior Director guy, but a cool field title. A guy was in there selling some tech. It did some streaming. Guess whose desk it comes across? Little old me. I look at the email chain and I see the name. I call him and introduce myself. Hey, it's Todd Herman. I'm following up the phone off speaking. Oh yeah. And this is exactly what I hear. Oh God. Hey. How are you? Wait, are you the decision maker on this? Probably. Yeah. So listen, can I get you to go ahead and fly out to Seattle, like to have an in person discussion? Moon, would you like me there this afternoon? He said, you're kidding. I said, yeah, I'm kidding. I am willing to look at the tech, but I'm also going to write a note back to the chain saying you're the most unethical person with whom I've ever dealt in my career in business. He goes, well, I guess there's no point I go. I don't know. Are you lying about the tech? They might say, by the tech, but they're not going to buy from you, bro. And he said, this was during the king of the universe time. I really apologize. I really apologize. I said, accept your apology. Or is it going to send that email? Yes. I have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders of Microsoft to say you're a very unethical man. That was probably the worst attempt at a screw job that ever happened. But again, it came back solid because it proved what we had was not easy to build. We spent a lot of time designing the system. There's a reason that it was the best system at the time. It makes sense. Yeah. And the thing that cracks me up about those scenarios, and it always seems to play out like this is you sit there and you look at the guy and you go, have you ever sat back and gone back and taken an inventory on that whole deal? Because had you played it straight and just partnered and not, we all would have made way more money, right? We all would have made more money, but just you were like my grandfather, you say you're too smart by half, right? Right. I love that saying. Yeah. Why take 25% of a company that could be worth 100 million, 150 million bucks when you can take 100% of a company that's gone in eight months? Because they're, because they're in, and he's the same way that my partner was. Because they're those people that whatever, when you're doing a deal with them, whatever is left on the table is a net loss to them. That's the way that they see it, right? So whatever they don't take of the entire pie, it's not, it isn't fair, it isn't proper incentives, it's everything is binary. They either get it or they don't, and if they don't get it all, they see that is losing something. And it's just the way they are. That's an eloquent explanation of business narcissism. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's okay to have a good deal for everybody. It doesn't have to be a killer deal for you, right? It's the best kind of business. I mean, like I was telling a young guy, this the other day, I go build a reputation for people doing well when they work with you. Like if you want to have a successful career, be known as the guy that does good deals and people make money with him, right? That's a wonderful reputation to have. It's one way to view life. Yeah. Right. I always appreciate you coming on my brother. Thank you for the wise counsel. Thank you for sharing that moment in your life that was hard, but led to good things. And remember this. 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