Jeremy (00:00)
So Jim.

Jim (00:00)
Yes, Jeremy, it's Jeremy, right? ⁓

Jeremy (00:03)
Why did nobody

believe the dad? Nobody believes the dad. Why did nobody believe the dad when he said he saw Medusa at the supermarket? Because it sounded like just another myth- stake

Jim (00:12)
I don't know why.

Yeah, that's punny. Yeah, that one's okay. You got it.

Jeremy (00:24)
So Jim, you want another joke?

Jim (00:25)
There are so many.

So much more of those, please. ⁓ So we can again just just prove that is not funny. So. Lot of things in the news as always, and a pattern we're seeing is more recently a wave of obviously there's plenty of anti A.I. in general, and that's fine. We're used to that. But in particular, there's a new wave of like.

95 % of you know AI Implementations, know don't work and are they aren't seeing your ROI or return right? But when we look at it like there was a piece in telegraph, right? So the UK and that was all about how most investments are yielding zero return

Jeremy (01:12)
But

this wasn't just in the telegraph. There was a lot of places that were talking.

Jim (01:15)
It was

rampant right but we picked up an article that just said Wall Street fear most AI investments yield zero return. The point is that's true-ish and I think that there's a couple things to unpack there. We're not going to get too deep into that but what we're going to do is

Jeremy (01:30)
I think the biggest

thing there and it's important for small and medium sized businesses to realize it was it made the rounds on Wall Street because they're talking about enterprise. Yes and like enterprise does it.

Jim (01:40)
enterprises,

big businesses, big corporations.

Jeremy (01:43)
And they solve problems by throwing lots of money at it. Fast.

Jim (01:47)
and early

to get ahead.

Jeremy (01:49)
And

that's where we talk about 95 % of failure rate based on investments in AI. They're saying that, they blindly threw money at this thing called AI saying, fix our problems. So this is important because I think that what we have seen in the people that, what I've seen in the people that I've spoken with, when small and medium sized businesses approach their problems with thoughtfulness, yes, some budget, but just don't keep throwing money at problems.

Jim (02:02)
right

Jeremy (02:19)
Small business can't afford to do anyway. So if you are thoughtful about it, you're strategic, like our last episode, right? And you think about, what's the problem I'm trying to solve? Not just look at it with like, the AI lens, AI's gonna fix it, but use AI as one of the tools in the arsenal. I don't know anybody from within our cadre of businesses that we've supported, or even ones that we haven't supported that I talked to are small businesses where they've done this and they don't come out the other side saying, you know what, it's solved problems. ⁓

Jim (02:48)
.

Jeremy (02:49)
either freed up time or saved me money and time equates to that too. Sometimes it's making money too and I think that that's a real differentiator for the types of businesses that we're talking about.

Jim (02:59)
So this is

all from an MIT report, a study that was done that really was all about gen AI divide, the gen AI divide, the state of AI in business in 2025.

Jeremy (03:10)
But again, this is

Jim (03:13)
This

is...

Again, wonderful in theory, but I academics are getting it wrong. think Wall Street's getting it wrong. In fact, I don't think it. I know it. Everyone's getting it wrong, except individual people who are using this to transform their lives and small business owners, small creators, people who are doing, you know, wrenching. It's kind of like any time a new technology comes out. It's not that I made this analogy to a large business owner the other day. said, well, you own a large corporation. You run a large corporation. ⁓

So you're like the aircraft carrier and myself and other people that are smaller. I said we're like in a little speedboat zipping around your little PT boat or speedboat zipping around you and we're going to like zip around.

Jeremy (03:58)
fantastic mental image for Vio going. ⁓

Jim (04:02)
ahead

and you as an aircraft carrier a big corporation a big enterprise can't make that turn quickly at all in fact you could barely make the turn you're gonna hit something what they're about to hit is this this giant tidal wave of progress that's coming and ⁓ exponential growth that's coming and that little

PT boat or little speedboat is going to be able to zip ahead and get there faster and ultimately knock out and destroy that giant aircraft carrier, even though theoretically it shouldn't be possible. So small business owners, small creators, entrepreneurs, people who want to become entrepreneurs, this is the moment. And that's the part that I believe genuinely these studies and the media in general is missing, but they generally miss.

Jeremy (04:49)
thought you were going to

go with Titanic hitting the iceberg and a little dinghy can steer around it really.

Jim (04:54)
That's a better analogy. I guess but the point is that's fine something like that But the idea is small and adaptive right versus large clunky organizations bureaucracy we're just talking about that earlier gosh, yes, you know offline here and That's gonna be the difference and that's why small businesses can can finally Level the playing field. We know that so I do believe that while this study is relevant It's relevant and accurate for big corporations who adopted early

Again, some of these companies started two, three years ago when they had no clue how or why they were doing it. They just knew AI, let's run and let's throw hundreds of millions or billions of dollars into it for our corporation. What problems are you solving or are you just cutting costs?

Jeremy (05:40)
Well,

I think when we hear words like the AI bubble, The AI bubble pops when you're, well, it pops when you throw ridiculous amounts of money at a problem without being thoughtful about how you're spending it, defining your objectives clearly, saying what's our timeline, how are we gonna approach this, what problems specifically is it trying to solve, and by when, are the miles?

Jim (06:02)
We solving, not just with any AI implementation or investment, but with at any level of business, large corporations, publicly traded or otherwise, enterprises, or small, medium sized businesses, or people who just trying to do a startup. What problem are we solving? Period, that's it. You don't need to think about anything else. That's what you need to think about and then fold in the AI technologies and other things to make it work.

Jeremy (06:26)
I want

to hear you talk about the feature piece of the

Jim (06:36)
Yeah,

so the main thing that we're focusing on today is something that again comes up. We've talked about it with like lists and things that come out, but it's young adults abandon white collar jobs for skilled trades because there's anxiety about AI and there should be for young people because if they think they're clearly plummeted, think I read it was what 13 % drop or something like that basically in ⁓ in new, you know, in in unemployment rate increasing in just that younger space of people trying to get these

jobs. the point is, this was a SF gate. This was kind of like in the San Francisco Bay area. So fine. know that that's going to be

Jeremy (07:14)
The

lens by which they're viewing it.

Jim (07:16)
But again, whether it's

San Francisco or New York to start, so goes the rest of the country eventually. it's the canary in the coal mine, right? It's like, well, San Francisco area is seeing this giant plummet of young people being able to get jobs. And they're pivoting to less traditional things like pipe fitting and plumbing and things of that nature and running electrical and things like that. When you look at that ⁓ and you see that that's happening already, they'll get a good run rate for a while.

They'll get a good solid 10 years probably. But then after that, they're going to be doomed too.

Jeremy (07:51)
I never

thought that I'd be calling San Francisco provincial, but I have to say this is a really myopic point of view So they are looking at their own people saying my god I Think they're missing the point in a massive way I think that those who are going into vocate to trade businesses vocation businesses These are the people who are honestly most poised to win and win big they were thinking about AI they will they're so

Jim (08:01)
Right. I don't know what that was, but yeah.

for now.

Jeremy (08:21)
But

for now, these businesses, until the robot revolution happens, probably, yes it will, but I don't think it's going to happen in the time period where these people can establish themselves, can get out in front and start using generative AI tools to help them do that. It could be that too. I'm not saying what the outcomes of their infrastructure will be, but what I am saying is that they are better positioned to take advantage.

Jim (08:26)
is going to happen faster than we were.

their robot army.

Welders

HVAC plumbers things of that nature. We know, know, again logically like those

Jeremy (08:55)
And they're

looking at this saying, wait, where are we going to get more people to run our tech businesses? And I think that's missing the point. That's what we're trying to say.

Jim (09:05)
It's missing the point of what we're trying to make. Their point was alarm bells ringing.

My point is alarm bells ringing in the rest of the country because of these folks have figured it out that they can earn a hundred grand before they're 21 younger people. And Gen Z is starting to adapt and evolve. And not only are they not drinking as much and not socializing in person as much and not leaning into, you know, ⁓ computer engineering or design or programming, they're also now leaning into things like we've talked about for generations, which is like we need more apprenticeships. We need more

trade schools and technical schools and they're leaning more into that in that microcosm of society in San Francisco area. However, however, I believe that ripple effect is going to be felt all across the country soon enough. think it's the quake. No real pun intended there either. If like in San Francisco.

Jeremy (10:00)
We should started with your joke.

Jim (10:02)
Exactly.

The quake is going to happen in San Francisco. The ripple effects going to be felt across the country. And if we use our heads and can help these young people in the next generation in Gen Z and guide them a little bit and give them little insight. Yes, they're going to get that insight from Chachi PT and Claude and other things too because that's become their companion. Become their companion, their mentor, their guide. So they're going to use AI tools like LLMs like Chachi PT to help guide them as their therapist or their mentor because they can't

have a lot of cases don't have personal connections with folks who maybe or access to people with more experience to know how to navigate through this and then they're gonna go out and they're going to now adapt to become plumbers and pipe fitters a lot of them and more you know trade-oriented men and women and While that can be either confusing or alarming or maybe we're just like semi-fantasy I think some of these numbers are starting to show it's an in a key indicator and if people are asleep about this

they're going to be left behind. They're going to get aware and awake that this is reality and it's coming for your town, city or state.

Jeremy (11:08)
Yes, I don't want to talk in the third person for a second. I want to speak directly to you, the person out there listening, not you, Jim, you stay right here with me. But you the anybody out there listening to this thinking, is this, you know, the right time for me to start my my business or to go into trade or to get that apprenticeship? have a really good friend whose son just started an apprenticeship. And I'm thinking to myself, for that person, the world right now, the world is there always there. There has never been a better time.

Jim (11:15)
But ⁓

Jeremy (11:38)
because of these amazing tools that exist. So, you know, I'm sorry for the San Francisco folks, I have friends out there, I get it. But at the same, well, I mean, I'm sorry for the people behind it, but I'm not sorry for empowering individuals and small businesses to harness this power and to compete in ways never before possible. my, to you out there, if you've been thinking about it, now is the time.

Jim (12:05)
Right. as agreed. And so that's that's like new entrepreneurs or people who want to become entrepreneurs, which by the way, that generation, yes, they want to be content creators and influencers, but they also want to be entrepreneurs. And guess what's guess what's how you're going to become an entrepreneur right now in 2025, 26 and beyond by being a content creator and an influencer while you build out whatever it is you're building. You build your community and so on. And then you build out your brand to go along with it. The beautiful thing about this is

is that generation is poised to actually be more successful than they realize and more successful than the last one, quite frankly, because they could just be really influencers who tried to monetize by getting views and clicks and maybe selling some products as affiliates. This generation has the ability to now build things on their own using the technology that's out there or, in this case, just become their own champions by being technical people or ⁓ folks who are more into ⁓ the blue collar jobs that were less sexy, cool, and exciting.

before where white collar jobs were considered like the pinnacle kick college degree. Go to go get your white collar job and you're set for life. That is no longer the case. We've talked about it before. We need to be really aware and awake for everyone not just for ourselves but for others and small business owners in particular need to start to think about their pipeline of where they're getting talent from. Let's say you're a plumbing company or an HVAC company right and you need people. Well there's going to be more opportunities now

for young people where before you'd like, no, I can't find anybody who wants to be an apprentice. Well, guess what? Start some apprentice program apprenticeship programs. Now get focused in on opportunities at colleges or community colleges or trade schools ⁓ or high schools, even that focus in those areas that are maybe charter schools. Why are yourself in? Because in the past, you're right, those mechanics, those, if you have a shop, those, ⁓ you know, other folks, you know, even on the salon side, right, that are more service oriented.

tech more hands on blue collar and service oriented jobs. Those jobs that young people didn't want before and look down on. They're going to be more open to because they don't have a lot of opportunities on the white collar side. And then for those young people focus in on your opportunities for what you want to do if you like that path and you want a little more predictability go for it for the next 10 or 15 years. But if you really want to hit it out of the park and you're willing to take on some risk and you don't have a lot of debt in your life or you don't have a lot of overhead or responsibilities.

This is your time to shoot your shot. There is no better time. Take it, make the leap, create a business, and that business can just be you as a person and what you build out next with technology or otherwise. I'm done preaching for the day. Rant over. Rant officially over. There's a lot to unpack here. There's a lot of risk. There's a lot of opportunity, and I think we really need to just think through how we.

as society and how business leaders and educators can really start to help guide young people through