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23:34And I mean, it would have been like, you know, the craziest trade of all times if I'd have stuck with it. But I wouldn't have stuck with it probably you know i'm a trader so it's like you can't you can't beat yourself up saying man if i would have just stayed in that or not stuck with and i think a lot of people do that to themselves you know it's a psychological game and you just want to try not to beat yourself up and not get down on yourself because that then it then it gets hard to fail and recover so what's the case for being a trader versus a investor because if you read about all the investing greats they all kind of poo-poo traders a little bit they're like oh you don't want to be a trader you want to be a buy and hold guy.

24:10You want to buy, find a great asset and then sit on it for a long time. Am I just only reading the advice from the investors and that's why, or is there something to what they're saying? No, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's plenty of trades I've been in that I've become an investor because they went against me and we just kept holding and holding and holding, right? It was meant to be a short-term trade, but turned into a long-term, you know, just ass kicking. So it's like, no, I agree. My job though, I was a trader. So, you know, I was at the floor, I was at the exchange, I was at Kansas City Board Trade guy, you know, and so my whole job revolved around trading and fairly quick movements in the market.

24:45I was never, I did own a day trading firm at one time. And you should have seen, you know, the success rate on people day trade, it was just a miserable business. So we don't day trade, so to speak. We'll be more swing trading. We'll be multi days in a trade. You know, the commodity markets are a little different for every buyer. There's a loser and they're a little different than stocks and there's expirations on the contracts. So, you know, we're more short term oriented, but we're also longer term investors like you would say, Sean. I do think I advise my kids, my own kids, exactly what you're saying.

25:15You know, no, unless you're going to be full time and you really want the belly aches, I wouldn't advise probably, you know, trading or trying to time market movements. Like I said, I'm more with Buffett. You know, I think, you know, everybody's trying to beat the indexes. I mean, everybody's trying to beat the SBA or the NASDAQ. And year in, year out, that's tough to do. And, you know, so I think, you know, as a passive investor, a long-term hold is probably a good play for, for the majority of most people. And that's the way to build wealth. How many years have you beat the index? How long have you been doing this?

25:4720 or 30 years? Do you think that you've beat the index? You know, I mean, the years that we beat it, we beat it by a mile because we get lucky in some certain position or some certain stock. And you're like this year, I'm, I'm trailing. I have decent amount put over into, uh, you know, we're still in a lot of CDs at five and a quarter or 5%. And a lot of our wealth building has come from real estate. That's just buying land, farmland, or what are you buying? Buying real estate. We have everything from commercial properties to single families that we've turned into various Airbnbs, land, farmland, regular land.

26:21Those have been our biggest winners. Has the majority of your net worth come from the income that the newsletter has produced, or has it been from trading? So I think there's two ways you can do it with your business. You know, when you're making money, you can either take the money and reinvest it back in your business, which we didn't do. That was kind of my play. I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to take my money and then I'm going to put it out and see and try and invest in other people's businesses. And, you know, and we're partners with a firm, a private equity firm called iSelect.

26:53So we're early investors in ag tech startups and some biotech. And so we've had a ton of losers, but they've all led to meeting new people, learning new things. And then that in turn comes to something else. So, you know, we try to grow our revenue and then take that revenue and invest it in various other vehicles and other sources. What's the like sentiment like amongst the people that are reading the newsletter or would come to the conference? You know, are people bullish right now? Are they optimistic? Are there big headwinds or tailwinds? what's going on in the food producer world? Yeah, you know, it's pretty dark right now over in our world, so to speak.

27:32The big jump in rates was obviously kind of a real pinch for a lot of our ag tech startups and a lot of the people just in agriculture in general. So you've had a big jump in rates. And then we also have, you know, a little bit of a glut right now. We have a pretty burdensome supply of corn. We're over 2 billion bushel supply of corn. You know, we got about 500 million bushels supply of beans coming down the pipe. Sorry, that means that last season overproduced? Yeah. We had a good year last year. South America is coming off a pretty good year. Argentine, for example, Argentine production doubled from what they had.

28:07They had a big drought last year, had some production problems. Brazil's got a little bit, they're down from a little bit. But China, like so China right now hasn't been a buyer of US new crop beans, haven't booked any cargos, which is unusual. So we're worried. We got this election coming up. Anything can happen. We're not sure how China is going to play it with Trump coming back into the mix. Are we going to have a bigger hit on tariffs? So when Trump was in office, we had bean prices go break pretty considerably because we got into a pissing match with China. And they're the number one buyer of beans in the world.

28:39So we're kind of trying to weigh this thing out here and see how things are going to shake out. But we do have some new things on the front. We got sustainable aviation fuel. So soybeans are now going to be used to make sustainable aviation fuel, which is going to be a big one. We're trying to push to get corn to where the corn production is going to also be used to make sustainable aviation fuel. There's a few pipeline issues that need to be addressed and some things like that. But we're moving for more food for fuel is becoming more, a little more prevalent. So we're seeing more countries move to that for cleaner energy sources.

29:12So we're seeing more utilities and more usage for traditional crops. And we're seeing more utility and more usage for land. We were just seeing a ton more buyers and bidders come in for land. People wanting to put in solar, you know, solar fields to create energy, wind fields. There's just a lot more utilities being used now for data centers. We're seeing a big push through the Midwest on companies wanting to build these massive data centers really through the glut of the Midwest. and we think it's kind of like Cushing's, Oklahoma, where we store our oil. Now we think data is going to be kind of the new oil.

29:48And so we're going to try and store our data here in the U.S. centrally into the Midwest. So we're seeing a big push in some farm ground being gobbled up for a big data. My father is a produce broker. So he owns a small brokerage where, like, let's say that over the course of 20 years, he's sold$100 million worth of onions, you know, over the course of 20 years. the margin is like 5%. So he'll make$5 million over 20 years or whatever if you sell$100 million worth of onions. So it's a huge quantity. But in that space, he's a small dog, really tiny. But I remember during 08, I remember I was only 17 or 18.

30:25I was watching the news and I was like, you know, dad, why do you seem like you're making more money now than before where everyone else seems to be going broke? And he was like, well, look at the corner of our kitchen. There's onions and potatoes there. people are still going to buy this stuff no matter what. And then when the economy is going well, you're going to go out to eat and I'll crush it then too. So it's like, I'm in a good business. And I remember thinking, as I got older, I forgot about farming and I forgot about food and agriculture. And I didn't really think about it. But what I've learned is that over the years that America is really good at two or three things, one of them being culture.

31:02So we export culture amazingly well. So Hollywood is our biggest export, I would say, or culture. The second thing that we do really well, we are so fucking good at growing corn. America is so good at growing corn. And I forget how important agriculture is to our way of life in America. So when you're talking about some of these things about what China's doing, what Brazil's doing, if China's buying stuff from us, how big is this entire industry that your associate i mean what percentage of the gt gdp or economic value is it creating in america compared to other things it's all massive i mean it's you know one of the and we're seeing more and more of the wealthy get into agriculture and that's why i'm saying it's a really hot area and you're seeing you know the gates foundation buffett's group uh well warren's son uh howard he used to be a big farmer uh and he had just recently gotten out and uh still on the ground but they're having some other people farm and do some things like that but yeah seen a big big push and more and more people being interested in ag and interested in food and where it's coming from.

32:05We're seeing, Sean, what we're also seeing is more people going direct to the farmers. Just recently in the last few weeks, we've seen more ranches come online, kind of form a little coalition. There's a group of about 70 good ranches down in Texas that are now selling direct to the public. You know, they were getting maybe, they were getting minimal for their beef, you know, and now that they're selling direct, they're really doing well and people like buying direct. And so - You just buy off their website or there's some startup that's doing this? Yeah, they have auctions. I think it's called Bid for Beef.

32:35I thought that was a dating site. Yeah, yeah. You know, so yeah. It could be, whatever you're into. Yeah, but they're starting to make more traction and we're seeing that across the board with other plays. What's going on with farms that kids don't want to take it over? What does the succession plan look like? And is somebody solving that problem? That's a huge issue. And that's being discussed heavily in the ag world that, you know, so you have this big succession rollover. I think, I don't know what the number, I can't remember off the top of my head. It's okay. 80 % of the farms are owned by people over 60, you know, and it's a really aging demographic.

33:13And a lot of the kids, you know, have other jobs or went off to great colleges and great schools and they don't necessarily want to come back. So yes, there is a big issue. And a lot of the people in the farming world keep their cards really close to their chest and they don't really talk a lot openly with their kids or they don't have a lot of great succession planning in place. And we're seeing that a lot. I think, you know, we've tried to be super open with our kids and discuss everything and show them everything and say, hey, here's where everything's at. Here's where you need to know. Here's where you need to be.

33:44And, you know, hopefully, you know, we tell our other friends to similar type things. So, yeah, succession planning is very important. And I think it's, you know, something that we all have to address as we own businesses. So what do you think is going to happen? Like, uh, if, if 80 % of these are owned by people over 60 and a lot of the kids are going, like, is this just going to be private equity owns all the farms? Like what, what, what happens here? We are going to see a lot of rollover, a lot of turnover. So in the farming space or when you're buying acreage, there's a, there's two bidders that are going to come against you.

34:13The person whose farm butts up against you, they're going to be willing to pay a big premium because the land may only come available once in their lifetime. And so they're going to be bidding heavily. So whoever's in close proximity, because as you know, driving the combines or driving it makes a lot of sense to get a continuing piece of ground and now you're also having like california teachers pension fund bidding against you you have other high profile uh fun people bidding against you so yes who runs it they just place somebody to go live on the farm and run it sean have you ever been on a farm no i don't know where i would go to find a farm where do you go my uh my aunts and uncles and cousins are farmers in oklahoma and they have like two or three thousand acres and they are i guess they're ranchers and so they own like 1500 cattle i believe and a bunch of their cattle are uh sean you probably never heard this term they're buck and bulls have you ever heard of you know what a buck and bull is i do not so what they do is they uh the pdr which is the professional rodeo association they if you get a good bull a good bull can be worth i don't know kevin what like 50 grand all the way up to a million dollars and Yeah, more than that.

35:24And these good bulls, you make money in two ways. You make money because at the rodeo, the rider gets paid. So if you stay on a bull for a certain amount of time, you win and you get paid. But the bull that bucks the hardest also gets paid. And that's like a rating system. And so there's like famous bulls that are known as like really hard bucking bulls. Who's the Michael Jordan of bulls? It's Bushwhacker. I mean, it's Bushwhacker. Bushwhacker has been the best for a long time. No, Bushwhacker is a famous bull. uh the guy who uh like dominated bushwagger what's his name jr or something he like just retired i believe right what was that guy's name we've my son played football a couple kids that were pbr bull riders they're insane so my cousin and the family this is what they do and so i went and stay with them every once in a while and we get up at like eight and starting at like 10 you go to the feed store and you buy a huge amount of feed you bring the feed back you call the bowls and you throw it all over like you scatter it out throughout the area and they come up and they eat it.

36:26And then on the weekends, they drive these bulls from Oklahoma to Texas, which is like 12 hours. And these bulls, when you put them into the truck, you would think a bull that you birthed and raised, like they will literally be there when they birth this bull. But once the bull hits puberty, I guess, or it has balls, it wants to fucking kill you no matter what. It doesn't matter if you raise or birth this bull, this bull wants to murder you every chance it gets. And so just to get the bull onto the truck, it's like a life or death situation every once in a while. It's a 1 ,500 pound thing that you got to get into this truck.

36:59And they would drive these bulls all around the country. And they get paid, I think, four grand just as an appearance fee or something like that to show up at the PBR. And then the other, the cows, the females. And so they make their money by raising the cows that they sell for beef. And then the bulls, they either sell them to get bread or they make money directly for the rodeo. And it's like a huge cash business. So my cousins and aunts and uncles, they'll always have a wad of cash because they'll go to the auction and it's just like a really heavy cash business. They get, let's say, 10 grand for selling 10 cows.

37:35They take that 10 grand and they spend eight of it like that day on more cow feed. And so it's like a really heavy... I'm probably getting some numbers wrong, but it's a really heavy cash business. and it's fucking hard. My cousin Sam would drive around and he'd be drinking natural light while he's driving his truck, checking on all the cows. Dude, it's a hard living and it's really fun. I've spent time on there. It's fun for me as a visitor, but it is a hard job to do this shit. You are working and walking constantly. Yeah, you're right. I lost a good joke. I'm like, not a big joke, but I did what you said.

38:12Somebody's mind getting said, hey let's start raising these bulls to be pbr bulls you know rodeo bulls shit i don't think i ever cashed one check i think it just it was a lot of fun a lot like you said a lot of drinking natty light and driving around the pickup checking on them and you know yeah like it's like fun but it's fucking hard and it's a very capital intensive business hey i'll give you one i'll give you one that i that was a big miss now a guy came to me and sam we're gonna kick out guy came to hell was probably 20 years ago and uh 50 you know the internet was just getting going he said man i got this great idea and the guy came in and he was all suited and i said well he's an english major and all that he says what i'm going to do is i'm going to build his websites and i'm going to hire a couple other english majors and we're going to write really eloquent descriptions of these cattle and these bulls and their stems the stem that they call the sperm you know and he's like then i'm going to sell this sperm all over in japan all over the world i said dude you're nuts this shit ain't going to work.

39:09You know, this was early on. Dude blew it up. He blew it up. How do you eloquently describe the sperm of a bull? What's his website? You know, the background, the lineage. I don't know. I have not followed him for another year, but I remember he came back through and some people were like, man, this guy just, hey, I'll tell you one, we were at the Louisville farm show. They had me come down there to speak. It's US's world largest indoor farming show. And so I go down there to be the keynote speaker. And there's this little booth setting up next to us. And they got all these Polaroids on this little 10 by 10 booth tent.

39:39And I go over to the guy, I said, what the hell is this thing? He's like, it's called FarmersOnly.com. And you guys have seen all of the ads. Man, I'm not shitting you, Sean. We're like all making fun of him. And then the next year he comes and he has like a 20 by 20 booth. And then the next year he's there and shit his booth, damn near as big as John Deere. I mean, his booth is massive. And we're like, what the hell? And then he's got Superbowl ads. It's just FarmersOnly.com. You're looking to marry a farmer, you know? That thing just blew up. And he shit, he turned that into a great deal. When you, uh, so let's say I wanted to become a gentleman farmer and I wanted to go buy a farm.

40:13Walk me through that. So first, where would I find a farm? Is this like sold like on Zillow or is this, uh, brokers only? How do people find farms to buy? You know, some people are now investing fractally through, uh, I'm in, I'm invested in a company, acre trader, acre trader.com. So we buy farms. We even have farms out in your neck of the woods, Sean, um, out and we have nut farms, out in California. We have regular other row crop production farms through Bakersfield in that area through there. You know, and all over the United States, you have various farms grow various different products. So a farmer is selling a fraction of their farm.

40:49What happens at AcreTrader, we go in and actually buy the entire farm from a family, say they're wanting out or that's the session planning and they want to leave. So we'll buy the entire farm. And most of the time we'll have a farmer in that area that has called us about the farm and said, hey, we don't have the money, but if you guys would want to put up the money, we'd be happy to farm it for you and do revenue sharing, crop sharing, or some type of split into the revenue. We're looking to just hold the ground for appreciation over a 10, 12-year period. The years you have good years, you have some really good years.

41:19Some years though, you're going to have some losing years. But over the course of time, 10, 15, 20 years, your appreciation on the land is going to be, that's really going to carry you forward. And that's what a lot of hedge funds are looking for. A lot of the funds are looking for that longer term appreciation. Well, what do these trade for? Like if I go buy a farm, what is the multiple you pay on a farm typically? Or would it be just price per acre? Price per acre. And it's gone nuts lately. I mean, my buddy just sold, his mom left him a chunk of ground that they had in the family. And he said, hey, what do you think?

41:49And I said, I don't, man, it's a great time. This was about seven, eight months ago. I said, you know, farmers are flush with some cash. Maybe it was about a year ago. And he ended up getting$20 ,000 an acre down here outside of Missouri. Now that's pretty rare. off the books. You know, acreage around here typically go for, you know, five to 12 to 15. But if someone needs the ground or wants the ground and it's a continuing piece of track to their farm, you can see guys get the bidding war. And so you get bidding wars and yeah, you can go out anywhere, look up farm grounds. You want to, you know, there's a lot of things you want to look for.

42:21Like in Kansas, you can't drill any wells in him. You can't drill new wells. And so Kansas and Nebraska, there's a lot going on with the underground aquifer and there's a lot of problems with water use. And so, you know, we believe though, we like C and B grade ground. We like ground that's maybe in a floodplain or we like ground that's water deficient because we believe that all the technology and the money from Gates's foundation or Buffett, they're really putting their money into new technology that will help grow crops in third world countries that have really poor soil. So, you know, Iowa has the best soil iowa and illinois they'll argue with each other who's got the richest soil and they've got great soil and great farms that you really don't have to do a lot to uh you get to some of these peripheral areas though you're gonna be like these guys you get a biker jacket but you got no bike right that's that's more of my my lane so i just need to know i'm asking questions just so i have the lingo in case i ever get pressed so that i can sound like i know what i'm talking about without actually knowing anything yeah you're uh you have to get some land to match that Carhartt coat that you want to get.

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44:29Well, what about the other tech? So like I've seen people do these like Fitbit for cows where they're like, uh, you know, like cows, valuable, you know, asset, and you don't know if it's sick. You're going to keep driving around and keep checking on it. What if you could know before it's too late, what tech is working? Yeah, it is. And we're invested in a few companies to do that and they'll tag them. They'll tag the cattle, you know, because there is a push to have less antibiotics, less, you know, less, uh, you know, shots and things into, into our, our food supply. So if you're able to identify when they have a fever earlier, you can get them segregated from the herd, get them away from the herd, give them the, give them the medicine that they need in a more timely fashion.

45:06So yeah, all of those are great. You know, Zoetis, a publicly traded company they're a leader really probably in the animal health space if you're looking for something a longer term play we're invested in zoetis i have a business sean that my friend's working on that might interest you too kevin so basically he's putting he's put rft rfd rft rfid rfid sorry tags on chickens and cows and you know how like a chicken will uh like when you buy eggs it says free range and you just kind of trust like i guess that means a chicken was just like out walking around, which is better for me because it's somehow healthier.

45:39And it's also like if you're if you care about animals, you're like, all right, at least I know it had like a better life and whatever. But free range, I think that's a technical term, actually, where it has to have a certain amount of space. But I don't think that it's actually necessarily always followed. And so what he did was he's putting these these tags on the cows and chickens. And so, you know, the beef that you bought, the tag number, and you could actually go and see how much did it walk around and where did it go? Which sounds a little morbid and weird, but it's actually supposed to be like reassuring where it like, look, my farm is now you can hold my farm accountable to know that this meat was actually raised in the way that I promised it was going to be.

46:17And that's like an interesting idea. Because I think Sean, you said this, I think you said, in like some period of time, 20 or 50 or 60 years, we're gonna look back at the way that we treated cows. And we're gonna be like, that was pretty unfortunate. Like this, it shouldn't have been done that way, where an animal is just born in a pen and never leaves. And then we eat them. And I, I actually agree with that. I agree with that sentiment where like the way that we treat certain animals, I'm cool with eating them, but it's better to better to have them have a certain life. And so this idea is kind of interesting to me.

46:44Yeah. We think that that's going to be prevalent throughout. We think you're going to blockchain the farm is what we're calling in our world. You know, you're going to blockchain a farm, meaning the fertilizer companies and the input companies are going to have to report all that. And you're going to know what was put on whatever it is you're eating or, you know, and the reason they want to blockchain it is just like, remember when Spolte was having those issues several years back, you know, with some things, they want to be able to go right to the field, right to the spot and know exactly what happened and what was put on and what time and where it was at.

47:13And so, yeah, I agree with you, Sam. I think that's definitely where the world's headed. And, you know, I think we're seeing farmers make that transition more and more. They're a lot more tech savvy than people giving them credit in the world. They're very tech savvy as a matter of fact. And nobody treats their animals. I mean, In my opinion, I have never been on a farm in my entire life that I seen any abuse to animals. I mean, nobody treats their animals better just because it's generally, typically the way they make their own living, the way they make their money and they teach their kids to take care of the animal.

47:42They love them and show them in four H's and go all around. It's sad that they do get such a bad rap in the media when I've personally never come across it. And what's your take on the alternative meat movement thing where in Silicon Valley, there's a bunch of startups that are trying to grow beef from cells so that you won't have to farm the animal. You won't have to harm the animal to be able to have the same genetic meat. It should be virtually identical, genetically identical. What's your take on that movement? And is that where you think things are going? I think there will be a segment of the space that continues to grow.

48:18And I think you're going to see it continue to gain market share. I think as population shifts and moves out, you know, as the baby boomers continue to age and move on, we get more people. I think you're going to see alternative types of protein be developed. And I think as they get more money in the labs, they're getting better at reducing the cost and creating better flavor. And I think as those two things continue to move forward, just like with Tesla and Elon Musk, you know, it's only a matter of time. time uh how's everything happened gradually than all at once and you know it's like the electric vehicle i think you have you know a lot fewer moving parts it's a lot better than the combustion engine i think you're going to see things you know gradually gain more and more market share well have farmers taken to like i always read the comments of like in texas message boards and things like that they it doesn't it seems like it's 50 50 if like the rural community thinks that electric vehicles are are worth it yeah right now at the time no because just the distance traveled, you know, a lot of folks have traveled massive distances out in rural America.

49:22And so it doesn't make a lot of sense to them at the moment. I think eventually, yes, I think they'll see it have better torque, you know, better low end, uh, get up and go out of the hole. And I think you'll see a lot more transition. I like anything, no, nobody wants to, I guess, let go of their heritage and their roots. And, uh, you know, it's same with the fake meat, you know, a lot of farmers just bash it and want to go nuts about it. I, I, I think there's definitely going to be a place for it. And I think there's, it's going to be able to gain and grow some market share, you know, probably, you know, as they get costs lower and lower, I think it'll be, you know, a way that we see things happen.

49:57If you were 24 years old again, and you had the entrepreneurial energy to go do something, what would you be, what would you advise that 24 year old to go, to go do in this space? Where do you think the opportunity is? I think there's going to be a big push with air quality air you know just the quality of air from this whole virus just to testing for the viruses and we're seeing a lot more testing take place in general uh just over the entire space so i think there's going to be a big push in things to do with air and creating good air quality we're seeing a lot more kids that have asthma or asthma related problems and i think you know not just here in the united states but i'm talking globally and But what's an example solution of that from an agricultural perspective?

50:44Well, we're big right now into the carbon market. So we're trying to reduce carbon footprints and no one really reduces it much more than the giant cornfield. The cornfield plants, things of that nature. And so, yeah, I think there's a big play and a big push into the carbon trying to reduce, like I said, trying to reduce the footprint. anything that'll help save energy, improve our water usage, improve water purity. You know, I think anything to do with the natural resources, they're just going to become more heavily relied upon. If we transition all this to electric, I mean, the rare earth minerals are going to be hard.

51:21They're going to be scary. I mean, there's going to be a lot of plays in, you know, what we see on the, uh, on that whole side and that whole front. So I think, you know, natural resources, things to do with natural resources, things to do with air, water, like I said, food quality, you know we really love the blue collar space i mean i think we love you know like what cody sanchez has going on or some of the other things we like the thought of buying blue collar businesses rolling them up and uh you know kind of packaging them up and selling them why do you like that because they're they're retiring i think they're retiring i think we didn't see near as many kids go into the trades as we had in the past you know my dad my wife's dad i mean everybody was in trade back then that was everyone's goal to go to college so you know you just had a big lull or a big i guess you know where they're just a short supply of good skilled people now we think you can go into that space and we've tried it a couple times and you know where we can build out some things and i think you provide people with good quality service and an onboarding process that you know you can cut your customer retention rate down to a feasible level i think there's just and the sky's the limit on growth.

52:30Do you use, Kevin, do you use TikTok? I'm on it. Yeah, I see it. Have you guys seen the popularity amongst young people and the trades? Like, they glamorize it in a cool way. And I think an accurate way, which is like, I'm making however, 150 or$120 ,000 I just went to trade for two years. It goes so well on TikTok because it's like a novelty. It's like going to the zoo. It's like, wow, you made that? You know how to do things with your hands? And that's what a carrot looks like when it comes out. Like, that's incredible. Swipe. All right, on to the next one. That was easy. But I actually think that some of these young people are actually being influenced by this because they're like, shit, I graduated with 150 or 200 grand in debt.

53:12And I don't make anything remotely like that amount of money. And I'm sitting on my computer all day. Like, this might be a little bit more intriguing. And I don't have any data. But it does seem like young people are more open-minded to the trades than at least Sean and I's, uh, like graduating classes. Yeah. I'm seeing that as well. I'm worrying that from some of the younger kids that are opting not to go to college and they're going in and be a pipe fitter or going into pipe fitters union or the plumbing union or electrical union. So yeah, we're, we're definitely seeing AI ain't gonna replace plumbers or, or electricians or HVAC people.

53:44It may be one day, but, but no time soon. Uh, and like, I do think that stuff's getting more popular. And I think that's really cool and fascinating. there's like it's also like ripped buff dude so it's always like chicks like commenting you're like about like have you seen that guy sean who just cuts wood yeah the lumber yeah the lumberjack guy he's incredible i love that just chicks i i'll sit there and i'll watch that video twice it's just an incredible video it's this guy that uses an axe and he's sometimes shirtless sometimes not and he's just like you know obviously a 10 out of 10 he's just chopping would.

54:17And like, everyone's like, I need this in my life. Therapeutic. Have you been a part of any roll-ups? I always find roll-ups to be a really interesting business strategy. It seems like there's a lot of money to be made in a successful roll-up. I'm curious if you've been a part of anything. I have not personally. No, I usually either exit ahead of time or, you know, get a little nervous or it blames out. But I have a couple of friends that, yeah, that's their whole, their whole way they've created all their wealth. You got one of the gentleman i'm speaking of right now he's doing it with uh cranes he's buying small crane companies uh that'll have two or three cranes and he's buying them and he's putting them all together and uh you know he's gonna sell that and he's done it with several other things whether it's restaurants or different things in the past so yeah i thought it was interesting on the crane play you know he came to me about an investment night we just didn't do it but uh i'm sure he'll hit a huge home run with it dude sean i think the shit that kevin's doing is way more exciting than the shit that our friends are doing.

55:14You're going to quit and go do it? No, I don't know about that. It sounds like a lot of work. Sounds like a lot of words then if you're not going to go do it. No, what it means is I like hanging out with these types of people sometimes. That's what it means. Yeah, it gives you guys, you know, I think it gives both of us. I like hanging out with your group of people because I think it gives me different perspective and learn different things that you guys have going on that I can make applicable to my world as well. And so, you know, yeah, there's a good synergy there between all. And how do you do that practically?

55:42Because I think you do a good job of getting yourself into positions like we talked about, going to random conferences that are totally outside your industry that you didn't need to go to, but you wanted to go to to shift your lens a little bit. Or hanging out with younger people who may be demographically just doing different things, culturally doing different things than the guy who made it and is at a country club now might be disconnected from whatever the culture shifts are. How do you tactically go about doing that? How do you put yourself in those positions? What questions do you ask? honestly just make myself.

56:10I always yelled at the kids when we were growing up, so I played sports at a high level and had several friends at One World Series and, you know, Super Bowls, we always talk, you know, you get a bad coach, you know, everybody get a bad coach or things like that. And it's like, look, man, you got to be able to steal something from the guy. The guy was a great player. He was, you know, you got to go in there with an open mind and you got to be able to take away some things that they've done well and that they've done positive and then use those and put those arrows in your quiver. So I just always had the kids looking for new, crazy, weird conferences or things to go to.

56:40And, and from there I'd make myself go the last couple of years, I didn't want to go. And I'm like, but each time I went, I, I, I took away several little gold nuggets that we've implemented into our business models and hell we've made big returns on them, each one of them. And, you know, I didn't think I'd get anything out of going to the car. I was just like, this is going to be a waste, but I just sucked it up and did it. You know, it's like going to work out or you got to run or something. It's like, yeah, shit. I guess I just got to go do it. Yeah. We had a friend when we were going to farm con who was supposed to come with us.

57:08It was me, Ben and our buddy. And the morning of we were like, Hey, we'll meet you in the lobby. Um, you know, your flight was, you landed like an hour ago. Right. And he basically woke up, looked at, and he said, Kansas city, he looked at the flight time. Then he's like, ah, you know what? And he just bailed. And I was like, man. Uh, but, but of course I, I felt that everybody feels that in the moment, like, ah, do I really want to go do this thing that I don't have to do that is unknown, right? It's back to your thing about, are you willing to sprint for an unknown distance? And we didn't know what value we would get out of it.

57:40That was the hard part. That was the challenge. And doing it when we didn't know what would come out of it was really, really valuable. And it's ironic because that same friend, he gave me a great analogy one time. We were talking to a younger friend. This guy was the youngest VC in Silicon Valley. So 19, 20 years old, he was investing, I don't know,$10 million into things. he was like, he got written up as the youngest VC in Silicon Valley. So we were meeting with this guy, but now five years had gone by. And it was like, you hadn't seen him really progressing at that same rate that you would expect somebody who definitely had that sort of phenom type of upbringing, where it seemed like he had all the potential in the world.

58:20And I was like, man, what do you think he's doing wrong? What would you do differently? He goes, oh, it's like windows and doors. He goes, he's only willing to do something if it's a window. If he can immediately see through and see what's on the other side of it, then he'll do it. But anytime there's a door and it's opaque and you don't know what's on the other side of it, he's not willing to knock on a door and open it up and see what might be inside. He's only looking at doors and windows. He's never willing to go through a door. And once he starts going through doors, this guy's career is going to take off.

58:48And I remember hearing that and really taking that to heart because I thought that was very, very wise. That's a great analogy. Yeah, I never heard that before. So I've heard a lot. Yeah, that's a great one there for sure. So Sean, the reason why you like a lot of these folks in the Midwest and some folks in the South is because you love phrases. You love phrases like windows and doors. You love cool sayings. And you know what? I love them too. And that's why I'm happy. I'm friends with both of you guys. We were at a dinner. So at FarmCon, you invited us to like a private dinner at the end. It was like 10 people.

59:19This guy stands up and he delivers two of the coldest lines I've ever heard. So he stands up and we're doing our intros. And so I stand up and I give some super vanilla intro. Hi, I'm Sean. I live in San Francisco and I'm a tech founder and an investor. All right, sit down. Forgettable. This guy stands up. He's got a big presence. And he goes, I don't remember what his name was exactly. He said, he goes, you know, I don't know a lot of things. I don't know. I don't know the score of the game right now. There's a big game going on. He's going, I don't know the score of the game right now. I don't know anything about this.

59:56And he goes, he goes, hell, I don't know where the remote is in my house half the time, but I know deals. And I made a lot of deals. He's like, I'm a private equity guy. And he starts talking about his deal making. I was like, wow. And he goes, I've been around for a long time. You cut me open. You can see a lot of rings in the middle. I was like, wow, that's one way of saying it. he's just on fire and he goes somebody goes somebody asked him they go what if well what if they don't what if they don't go for it on this deal sounds like you really need them to to say yes what if what if they say no what if you get rejected he goes i'm not afraid of rejection and he's a big big old dude and he goes i've stood in front of women in my life naked before i've heard no no no no no i'm okay with it i was like wow this guy is like half comedian half businessman and I loved it but it was just another day at the office for him but for me coming from our world that was like the charisma levels and the gift of the gab was so incredible to see I loved it yeah it's definitely wild times and you got that too a little bit that I like just hearing what you have to say Kevin and for the people listening maybe we'll get you some new subscribers it's thevantrumpreport.com I like your, you always, you do something cool where you'll just like have a selfie with you and your wife.

1:01:10And you're like, say, today we're on vacation. Here's what we're doing. And you'll say something kind of funny and cute. And I love it. We should just get like a group of 20 of our listeners, a select small group to go to FarmCon. And we'll all go together as a field trip next time you guys do it. When is it? First week in January, January 8th and 9th this year coming up. How much is the ticket? I think this year we're like$1 ,200 or something. And you sell a lot of them too, right? yeah we'll sell out whatever they give us you know capacity we sell out the hotel every year yeah we appreciate you doing this you're the man thank you and thank you for uh years of being a cool dude you've always been a great guy to me so thank you yeah i appreciate it good luck both you guys and your families and that's the pod thank you very much i feel like i can rule the world i know i could be what i want to i put my all in it like no days off on the road let's travel never looking back.

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1:02:35If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, column N8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members, FDIC.