Amazon’s Robot Plans, Trump’s Stock Picks, & Tesla’s Inflection Point

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0:45Public.com presents the Rich Habits Radar, a new Friday episode of the Rich Habits podcast, where every Friday morning we're coming at you with the biggest headlines impacting you and your money. My name is Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croke, And the three things sitting at the top of our Rich Habits radar this week include Amazon replacing 600 ,000 jobs with robots, Tesla hitting an inflection point with their self-driving technology and really ramping up their robo-taxi production, and the Trump administration taking an equity stake in quantum computing stocks. That'll be fun to talk about.

1:20And be sure to stick around to the end to learn more about OpenAI's new web browser that reportedly isn't competing with Google Chrome. We'll see about that. Now, Robert, before we kick off with the first story, we have a pretty cool announcement to make. Definitely, I would say that is an understatement. We finally did it, Austin. We're officially partnered with Republic and the Cashmere Fund and are excited to announce the launch of a first-of-its-kind investment opportunity that includes stock in SpaceX, Perplexity, and XAI. After months of work behind the scenes, we've finally been able to get this opportunity across the finish line.

1:56So, Austin, tell everyone what we've done. Right. So there are publicly traded companies on the stock exchange and there are privately held companies that are not traded on the stock exchange. Anyone can go buy and sell stock of the publicly traded ones, but only those with deep connections and specific networks are able to be invited to invest into the private ones. For example, Robert, you were invited a couple years ago to invest in Elon Musk's company XAI at a$5 billion valuation because of your deep connections and relationships. And now they're rumored to be a$200 billion company, which was a 40x return in just two years.

2:32So after months of hard work behind the scenes, we are thrilled to announce that you all are now invited to invest alongside of us in SpaceX, Perplexity, XAI, And honestly, a lot of other cool companies inside the Cashmere Fund that includes Mr. Beast's Beast Industries. You guys have heard of Feastables. Katy Perry's DeSoy, Graza, the olive oil company, Acorns, the fintech company. They're all part of this investment. You nailed it, Austin. A$7 ,500 commitment gets you invested into SpaceX, Perplexity, and XAI, as well as 38 other companies inside of the Cashmere Fund. This has been something we've been working on behind the scenes now since August, and we're thrilled to be able to unlock this asset class of pre-seed to pre-IPO privately held companies to the world.

3:20So if you want to invest alongside of us, I've already committed my$7 ,500. Robert has done the same. The whole team is excited about this. If you want to invest alongside of us, as little as$7 ,500 gets you in the door. So be sure to click the link in the show notes below or the description of this YouTube episode or literally go to our link in bios. It'll be in there, too. We are making sure everyone knows about this awesome new opportunity that we've been able to unlock for our listeners. Think about that. For$7 ,500 minimum investment, people can own a piece of SpaceX, Perplexity, and XAI plus all these other companies.

3:56Graza is incredible. We love Acorns. So this is one of the coolest things we've ever built and ever done. And I'm so excited for everyone that follows us, all of our listeners, to take a look at this investment and see if it's a good fit for them. Because I'm super excited for myself, that's for sure. All right, Robert, with that being said, let's dig into our first story. Yes, Amazon just quietly admitted what we all knew was coming. They're raising wages for warehouse workers and doubling down on robots, which means about 600 ,000 jobs could be shifted to machines over the next few years. This isn't fear mongering.

4:32It's the biggest workforce transformation in modern business. Now, Amazon's average warehouse wage just jumped to about$20 an hour, up from$18 last year, which on the surface sounds great. But at the same time, Amazon Robotics now runs over 750 ,000 active robots in these fulfillment centers, which is up 30 % year over year. These are real machines that move shelves, scan inventory, and can pack orders faster than any humans ever could. And the math is simple. A$30 ,000 robot that lasts five years is cheaper than paying$40 ,000 a year to a human worker, and it never calls in sick. And Amazon isn't alone.

5:12Walmart, Target, and even FedEx are building robot-first logistics networks. The U.S. economy has 9 million open jobs, and most of them are physical labor, and robots fill the gap not just because they're cheaper, but because there just aren't enough humans to fulfill these jobs. So what does it mean for you and your money? It means that the automation boom isn't just a headline story here that's catching attention. It could also be an investment story, right? So according to Morgan Stanley, the switch to robots, right, these 600 ,000 jobs replaced could save Amazon over$4 billion a year in direct labor costs that goes straight to their operating income straight to their bottom line.

5:52Now, this bet on robotics is not about trying to cut costs this specific quarter or even this year, but over the coming years and decades. Companies like Symbotic, NVIDIA, Rockwell Automation, and UiPath are the ones that are reportedly selling picks and shovels in this gold rush. So we'll have to see what happens. So if you're in the Rich Habits Network, you know we've been investing in humanoids for over a year now via our private investments into Aptronic and Figure. And if you understand where the world is heading, fewer humans, more machines, you can position your portfolio to ride the automation wave and not get run over by it.

6:27I know for sure for me, having a warehouse and having all these workers, it will be nice to not have to deal with sick days and vacations and all these things and be able to really just be more profitable and more organized and streamlined. So this is a good time to maybe consider owning Amazon stock. Now let's talk about Tesla's inflection point when it comes to full self-driving and rolling out these robo-taxis. So Tesla's management says that they're at a critical inflection point thanks to AI, full self-driving, and robo-taxis. They're targeting an annual production rate of 3 million vehicles a year within the next 24 months and doubling down on their robo-taxi expansion and that full self-driving that we've been talking about.

7:12Tesla's playbook is no longer selling a hunk of metal for a one-time fee. According to their earnings call that took place earlier this week, Elon wants to generate recurring high margin revenue for the business through software. And he stated we're just at the beginning of scaling quite massively to full self-driving and robo-taxi and fundamentally changing the nature of transport. Take this all with a grain of salt as Elon loves to give unrealistic timelines on his ideas, scaling to 3 million cars in production in the next 24 months seems very aggressive to me, but we'll have to wait and see.

7:47Having legislature passed by lawmakers giving the thumbs up on robo-taxis all around the country is also an aggressive prediction. Yeah, I think Elon's very well known at this point for giving some lofty predictions that don't come true in the timelines that he likes to say. So yes, take this all with a grain of salt. But what does it mean for you and your money, Robert, it means that Tesla isn't just going to sell you another car. They're trying to sell you mobility as a service with their robo taxis, right? If Elon actually can hit 3 million vehicles and roll out full self-driving and this robo taxi service, Tesla now shifts from a car company, quote unquote, trading at six times revenue and maybe into a software company, which could justify 10, 15, 20 times earnings multiples like an AI or a cloud stock.

8:37Every Tesla on the road becomes a cash flowing robo taxi node. Every software update increases margins and every full self-driving subscription adds recurring revenue. Despite the lofty expectations and timelines, though, we own the stock. We've been bullish for a long time. So not to mention during their earnings call this week, Elon called their Optimus humanoid robot and infinite money glitch. I'm sure that's going to get turned into a lot of memes in the coming months. Elon was also quoted saying, that's why I call Optimus the path to true sustainable abundance where work becomes optional.

9:13Where work becomes optional. How crazy is that to think of, right? I mean, we all saw, I think it was the figure three robot. They had a hype video that came out recently. And I think it's Optimus. They're having an event here just in the next couple of weeks in November. It's insane, dude. It is absolutely insane. There's going to be a time in the next five to 10 years where millions of these robots are working jobs. And I don't know what the answer is from when it comes to like turning their labor into, you know, distributed. Because it's going to displace so many people, right? We have to tax the labor somehow.

9:45Something's going to have to happen here. So who knows? But we're not as far away as you might think. We are, I would say, single digit years away. Yeah, our dystopian future is right in front of us. There's going to be just a ton of disruption in the next five to 10 years, and I am here for it and ready to be ahead of it all so all of our listeners and followers and Rich Habits Network members know what to do with their money and how to invest in this new future. And that leads us to our next point today. The Trump administration is in talks to take equity stakes in quantum computing firms. Companies including IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and D-Wave Quantum are in discussions to have the government become a shareholder as part of agreements to get future funding earmarked.

10:30Quantum computers are seen as a critical next generation technology because they can quickly perform computations that would take today's computers billions of years, literally. Experts say that this type of cutting edge technology can make it easier to create new drugs, discover new materials, create new chemicals while making every segment of the economy even more efficient. Allison Schwartz, the head of government relations for D-Wave Quantum, said the company wants to sell systems that can solve the government's hardest problems and get a return on their investment. Yeah, I think this is a really smart play.

11:03We've seen it recently in the AI space with the government taking a position in Intel and other companies. So I think it's a really smart move if we're going to really bolster the future of technology and manufacturing in the United States. And Google revealed a new algorithm called Quantum Echoes, which runs on its quantum chip codenamed Willow and reportedly executes tasks around 13 ,000 times faster than the best classical supercomputers. Now, the kicker is, according to Google, the algorithm is claimed to be verifiable, meaning other quantum or classical systems can check its results. That's important because quantum results often have trust verification issues.

11:44Now, despite this breakthrough, Google does cautions that they're not yet at some large-scale commercial quantum machine type business yet. The achievement is still narrow and highly specialized. So, Robert, what does this mean for you and your money? Yeah, I think the rise of quantum computing was one of the three major predictions we made for this year, and it's certainly coming true. It's obvious that unlike the Oakhlos of the world, quantum computing could become a very successful business sooner than we think. With that being said, we're still years away from quantum computing being useful in a traditional business environment.

12:18We have some exposure in our portfolios, but certainly not betting the farm on them just yet, because as we stated earlier in the year, it's still a long ways off. I think that's a great takeaway, right? So it's so fun, though, because we've talked about Amazon replacing all these jobs and Tesla doing some. What's like the big underlying theme of the three things kind of we just talked about? well one it's AI but also two it's just like the future of work the future of business the future of where all of this is going and it's it's so funny because I think it's a quote from Bill Gates that that is you overestimate what you can achieve in one year but you underestimate what you can achieve in 10 and I feel like we're beginning to really conceptualize now as chat GPT and open AI and all of this AI stuff has really become so important over the last handful of years just how much we can achieve in the next 10 years, right?

13:09You asked me three years ago, were people building humanoid robots? I mean, I'm sure they were like some places, but I'd never heard of it. No one ever was really, I mean, sci-fi movies, I guess, you know, was full self-driving a thing three years ago? Yeah, kind of, but like, not like it is now. You've got the Waymos, you got the, you know, Uber's doing stuff. Now Tesla's doing the robotaxis. Was quantum computing a thing that Google was working on three years ago? Maybe it was, but I guess I'm saying is like, we're making some crazy strides, Robert, in the last couple of years when it comes to the future of business, the future of work.

13:39And it's never been more important to have equity stakes in this technology, right? If it's directly by investing into the stocks and the companies like the Amazons and the Teslas and the Googles of the world, or if it's just being a net buyer of assets and having exposure to American capitalism through the NASDAQ and the S &P 500. Well, and I think it's important for everyone watching and following along on this episode to understand that there There are going to be pivots. There's going to be a ton of displacement of jobs, but there's also going to be a ton of new jobs. There's going to need to be massive workforces of people that work on the robots because in the beginning, the robots aren't going to be able to service and fix themselves.

14:16I'm sure down the road, there'll be a world where they do, but there's just going to be other things to do. And we really have to beg this dystopian question. Is quality of life going to get better down the road, as Elon says, when work is optional? And these are the things where we could go really, we could spend hours talking about universal basic income is probably going to have to happen. What are all these people going to do? Is obesity rates going to go way down because people are going to have more time to eat better and work out and have more free time? So who knows what the future holds?

14:49I just want to be ahead of it and guide our listeners as good as we can to make sure we get them on the right path financially and in their business and workforce. With that being said, Robert, let's now jump to our rapid fire section of the episode. Every episode, I bring three headlines that caught my attention. Robert brings three of his own and we unpack them. So I'll kick it off. The three things that are at the top of my rapid fire list include OpenAI's new AI browser, ChatGPT Atlas, getting released this week. Elon's recent comments about his potential$1 trillion compensation package. in an AI-first movie studio, raising$12 million in funding.

15:29So that'll be fun to talk about too. All right, Robert, let me break this down for you. So OpenAI just unveiled their AI browser ChatGPT Atlas. Now the launch is super notable because ChatGPT itself has 800 million weekly active users. So if they can just immediately plug this browser into their user base, it's lights out for Google. For the company, the browser is much more of a way of keeping ChatGPT central than it is making a web browser better. Sam Altman is quoted saying, We think AI represents a once-in-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be, how to use one, and how to most productively use the web.

16:04Tabs were great, but they haven't had a lot of innovation since they were invented. We've seen the CEOs of Google and Microsoft talk about AI as a platform shift. However, for consumers, phones and desktop operating systems are still the primary way that we use AI tools. But now OpenAI wants to own the entire distribution of ChatGPT. Now let's talk about Elon's recent comments of this$1 trillion compensation plan. So Tesla's board of directors proposed a compensation plan for the co-founder and leader of the company, Elon, that would add an additional 12 % to his already substantial stake in the company, carrying a value of a little more than$1 trillion, assuming the company hits specific milestones outlined in the plan.

16:47One of those milestones is for the stock to go up by 5x from here, creating a market cap of$8.5 trillion or twice the current value of NVIDIA, which seems insane to me. Very much an ambitious goal. Now, what a lot of people are saying is transferring that kind of wealth to a man who's already worth half a trillion dollars does seem like overkill. But Elon insisted on Wednesday during his earnings call that it's not about the money. I think I even saw him tweet, I can't even spend that kind of money. What am I going to do with it, right? He says, quite literally, there's a quote. He goes, I don't feel comfortable building a robot army, talking about Optimus, if I don't at least have a strong influence over those robots.

17:30He said, he added later that he worries about building one of these robot armies than getting ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS or Glass Lewis, which are two of those, I think they're like lawyer firms or whatever that got him screwed up last time with this compensation, right? It's just, they're always trying to go after him apparently. But I don't blame them, right? I feel like at that point, it's not even about the money. It's like, hey, this is my company. I just spent the last however many decades of my life building this. If it's robo-taxis, if it's Optimus, if it's whatever.

18:00And now I don't even have a say into like what happened to them. So I don't know. It's interesting. I understand both sides of the equation. I mean, it's like, why don't just give them voting power of 12 % more versus like the actual like stock? Like, does he need another trillion? No, right? But to give him the voting power of it, that could be cool. Could be a nice little something there. Now, the last thing I want to talk about is this AI-first movie studio raising$12 million. It's called Wonder Studios. They're an artificial intelligence creative studio backed by OpenAI and Google DeepMind.

18:30And they raised a$12 million seed round to expand their production amid a growing trend toward the use of AI in the entertainment industry. Now, the funding will be used to double the company's engineering team and accelerate a push into intellectual property ownership and original content production. The investment in Wonder Studios is the latest move toward the use of AI in entertainment. Last year, we saw Andreessen Horowitz make some big investments into Promise, which was another gen AI movie studio. Seeing Wonder was founded by Collins and Justin Hackney, and they use AI across three strands of their business, commercial work, IP partnerships, and production of original entertainment content.

19:10The studio plans to release a number of commercials and original productions next year. Robert, if the AI slop video commercial that Coca-Cola made last year taught us anything, I don't think anyone wants AI-generated movies yet. I don't think anyone's ready for that. I think it's going to be tough luck because we're going to be stuck with it. It's going to keep getting bigger and bigger and more realistic. You know, I think we see every day there's a new AI technology that we have to have. So it's getting to be a little cumbersome to figure out what actually works the best and what is the most cost effective for all of us.

19:46But more to come on that. But that was an incredible rapid fire section. Just so many great things happening, but it is a little bit scary. So it's fun to follow along and really understand where the world and where technology is going. So I want to get into my three rapid fire selections today. Number one, SpaceX executed an internal transfer of approximately 2 ,495 Bitcoin, valued at around$288 million, and it was interpreted as a strategic reorganization rather than a sale, reinforcing institutional confidence in Bitcoin as a treasury asset. BlackRock also purchased a reported$200 million worth of Bitcoin for their iBit ETF this week as well.

20:29Number two for me is mortgage giant Fannie Mae has issued new projections, forecasting that their mortgage rates will finally fall below 6 % by the end of 2026, a level that has not been reached in three years. Fannie Mae's latest monthly economic and housing outlook predicts mortgage rates will average 6.4 % at the end of the year and 5.9 % at the end of 2026. And number three for me today are gold and silver are seeing a long overdue correction, but they are still under-owned in portfolios and the structural drivers behind the rally remaining intact. Saxo Bank's head of commodity strategy, Ol Hansen, said in a note.

21:10And you know, everyone was kind of having that panic moment. There were a lot of crazy headlines this week around gold and silver. I remain bullish. I think gold and silver have a long way to go in the coming years. And I do believe that silver will outperform gold coming up, but I am steadfast and going to keep dollar costs averaging along the way. Man, I hope mortgage rates come down. That'd be great. I want to buy a house and not have a mortgage rate of like 7 % on it. Definitely. All right, Robert, let's jump into our Q &A section of this episode. As a reminder for everyone tuning in right now, these sections of the episode, these questions are specifically focused on small business owners, entrepreneurs, side hustlers, anyone out here making money, right?

21:52You can ask any question as it relates to trying to generate money, anything to do with entrepreneurship, because Robert and I are entrepreneurs and we're happy to give you our advice. Now, our first question comes from Alan S. Remember, if you have a question to ask, you can DM us on Instagram at richhabitspodcast or email us at richhabitspodcast at gmail.com. Alan S. says, my small lawn care company doubled this year, but I'm the bottleneck. Every quote, schedule, and payment runs through me. I want to grow, but I am burning out. How do you actually step back and delegate when you're afraid quality will drop?

22:25What's the first role most small business owners should hire for to reclaim their time? Robert, I'll let you kick this one off. For me, it is always important to hire to your weaknesses. So if you're really good at the work and you're really good with the customers, hire someone that's really good with the quotes and the books and the back end, the administrative stuff. If you're really good with the administrative stuff, then hire a front end manager that can go meet with the clients, do the quotes, make sure that the crews are doing the work and getting things done. But you are struggling with what every small business owner struggles with in the beginning, and that is growth without having a plan.

23:03So I would first and foremost figure out what you're weak at. I would look at how you can fix that bottleneck with either technology. We have a ton of really great technology out there to help small business owners. Or I would look at hiring that front of house person that's going to take over that role for you. Because I think that is the number one most important thing is allowing yourself a real opportunity to succeed through growth by making that first important hire. So choose wisely. My favorite piece of advice that I got as it relates to being a small business owner and hiring and things of that nature is you can choose time or you can choose profit, right?

23:43You've been choosing profit for the last however long now and you're getting burnt out. You want your time back, which means you need to take some of your profit and use it to go hire somebody. Now, I'm not saying go jump on LinkedIn or go text your buddies or whatever real quick and say, hey, come work for me. Be very slow and methodical about it. And to Robert's point, yeah, get out a yellow pad and write down a very clear description of what you're hiring for. Things that you enjoy doing. Maybe you love going out and giving the quotes. Maybe you love building the schedule or maybe you love talking with clients and collecting payments.

24:15I don't love that, but I don't think anyone does either. But maybe you love specific parts of your business. Make sure you identify those parts so you keep doing those parts. The things you don't love and the things you're not good at, that's what you write down on the piece of paper that Robert's alluding to and say, okay, I want someone that is going to build the schedule. I want someone that's going to reach out and collect payments. I just want to be, you know, I'm Alan. All I want to do is be out there on the grass or be out there with the lawn care and just get it done. And it's all I care about.

24:42I want everyone else to do something else, right? So that to me is the first step, understanding what you want to do, understanding what you want to delegate. and then figure out how much you can afford as it relates to that delegation. Say, okay, if I'm able to hire somebody that is gonna be able to take, let's call it, I don't know, 15 to 20 hours a week off my schedule, that's 15 to 20 hours a week. I can go out and cut grass. I can go out and do the lawn care stuff. How much more revenue can I generate now knowing that I've got an extra 15, 20 hours a week? So nine times out of 10, if you play your cards right, Yes, you are going to have to pay somebody, of course, to work for you.