Ask Us Anything: Trump’s latest assassination attempt + Are classic trades the most reliable career path?

0:00I'm Adam Schwab. I'm Adir Shiffman. And this is The Contrarians with Adam and Adir.

0:09And we are back. Episode 200, Adir. Pretty remarkable. We have made it. Do you think we'd hit 200, Adir? I did not think about it. I think only about how I'm going to get through each individual episode. Week by week. What percentage of podcasts do you reckon hit 200 episodes, according to Gemini? 1 %? Lower. Really? That's surprising. Well, there's a really great stat about podcasting that I think it's like 80 % of podcasts don't make it past episode 7. Really? 47 % don't make it past episode 3. Yeah, wow. Okay. Only 1 % make it past 20 and 0.1 % hit 200. So in the top 0.1 % of podcasts. Some of those are one individual speaking into a vacuum with no listen ever, I respect.

1:02Congratulations, boys. We made it. 200. On that note, we'll go to the real Ask Us Handling and we'll put the celebrations to a side. And Mike, over to your question number one. Yeah, great. This question comes in from Carla. My son is in year 12 this year and thinking about his next steps. I've honestly been thinking that with the way the world is headed, the best careers for young people are classic trades like plumbing, electricians or carpentry. It just feels like we'll always need humans to do work like that, whereas a lot of other work could be taken by AI. What do you think about trades like this?

1:38Elon believes in robots. Elon is repositioning Tesla as a robots business. And so people have tried to get robots of one sort or another to lay bricks for a very long time. You would think laying bricks would be pretty straightforward. It turns out it's not. It's very hard to do. There are big machines that can kind of lay bricks, but plumbing and carpentry, yeah, I suspect it's going to be a long time until there are even tools that can do most of that work. So I think trades are relatively safe in the next – I only want to say in the next decade because who knows? Things move so quickly. Who knows?

2:19I mean my general view would be try to figure out something that your kid is good at and enjoys and can make a living and steer towards that because if my parents would have steered me towards a trade when I was young based on AI reasons I think that would have been terrible for me and probably terrible for anyone's house that I was working on as well so I think that's more got to do with the individual and what they're good at and what they enjoy as you know my son is doing computer science you know a lot of people six months ago said oh there's no future for computer science i couldn't agree more i couldn't disagree with that more strongly like i think absolutely there's a career so i think it's very hard to pick what is going to be viable and good as a career in 20 years time it's a bit like picking shares isn't it it's really hard to know i think i think you're right i think i think there's certain you're not going to become a horse car driver in 1920 so there's certain occupations that probably doesn't make sense i think we talked about it on the pod last week truck driving for example driving generally is probably a job that is going to struggle in we think in the next decades there are certain jobs that are really obviously going to be impacted by ai i think um carla's right i think trades are by far one of the hardest jobs i think trades and sales are two of the hardest jobs to displace and think like what robots can't do is the is the opposing thumbs is really hard and the feet things i imagine if you're doing fixing air conditioners it's gonna be pretty hard for a robot to be able to do what an air conditioner repair person can do it's gonna be pretty hard to do what a mechanic can do pretty hard to do what a plumber can do bricklaying probably a slightly easy but even then i think it's pretty tough so i think i think trades are definitely one of the more insulated but then if you extend trades to driving that's probably harder so i think you broadly want to don't want to do a job that is going to completely defunct, but it's really hard to predict what's going to happen in 30, 40, 50 years.

4:14So I think you're right. You want to do what you're good at, but just don't make stupid decisions. There's AI platforms now that claim that they're better at doing outbound voice sales than salespeople, definitely for pre-sales. I've never seen, even a service, we use Sierra, which is probably the global leader now for service. Service is much easier than sales and it's nowhere near as good as a good rep. Of course, but it's 2026 and this person is planning for 2046. I'm just saying the point that saying it's better now. It's nowhere near better now. It's probably still five plus years away from me.

4:49But I think the real reason, in my view, it's hard to know how to answer this question is because everyone that's doing a job today in an office that is going to have some deep impact from AI, we don't know what that impact is. We don't even know what AI is going to look like in five years. Everyone will restructure their job. So they're doing some other version of that job that uses AI as a tool. And so I personally am generally less worried about the eradication of jobs by AI. And I think more it will be a restructuring of jobs by AI. And I think it's very hard to predict. We talk about businesses pivoting and we're pivoted like seven times as a business.

5:30People are going to have to pivot as well. So you get a job and you have to pivot your role and pivot your role. We've seen that happening in the last 50 years anyway, but it's going to become, I suspect, more pronounced. But you want to do something you like. I think any person, any role, if you work super hard and are super diligent and try really hard, it doesn't matter what role you're doing, you'll get ahead in that role. It's grit and determination is probably like 75%. Like, obviously, you need a modicum of talent and intelligence. but 75-80 % is just sort of turning up and doing what's asked of you and trying to come up trying to do more what's than what's asked you and that that's the best way to get ahead great answers guys question two this week comes in from Steph Steph asks recently I've been asked to take on new responsibilities in my job it started being small things as other staff left but now I feel like my workload has actually doubled.

6:24I've been told to be patient for a proper promotion and financial compensation for the extra work, but it's been nearly a year and nothing is changing. What should I do? Figure out the supply and demand curve of you, because if there's no good demand for you, then what you should do is realize that you're supplying something that may not be in high demand in other places. And if your role is a role in high demand or you're exceptional, then face the reality that a business that makes promises for a year and doesn't deliver is a business unlikely to deliver, maybe unless under extreme pressure, i.e.

7:05I'm handing in my resignation. But this is a tricky situation. We can say the easy version of this is, I'm just going to pick random numbers you earn$150 ,000 and you know you could go somewhere else and earn at least$150 ,000 and maybe$200 ,000 and probably be promoted into another role somewhere and it we wouldn't be unemployed for long so that's an easy decision I mean you can just decide I'm going to hand in my resignation letter and use that as a bargaining ploy the problem is if you don't feel like you've got somewhere to go and you overplay your hand you might find you've cemented your position of, they're not going to fire you, you sound too valuable to fire, but you've cemented your position of being taken for granted.

7:50And that is also a dangerous game. So it's tricky, right? It's a tricky situation. But you agree, Adam, that business is not going to suddenly wake up one morning and treat that person well. Well, there's three ways, and a great question, Steph, and a super relevant question for every person who's got a job who listens to the podcast. So there's three ways to get a pay rise. You either get one unilaterally the business gives you one often that happens annually you ask for a pay rise or you get an offer from another business and your current employer matches it or a combination of two and three which can happen as well so i think sounds like uh steph's been waiting for number one which hasn't happened which is probably which can happen either one of two ways and the business is is lazy or just often as a and both of you and i experience this uh idea is not that you don't appreciate people just kind of forget and maybe and you forget how good and you don't appreciate how good people are and that's not necessarily true to malice it's probably due to a bit of not not even lazy it's just you just don't think of it and that could be the case here for steph i would never ever in this situation leave steph if she was so fundamental doing all these roles you want to keep her i would never leave her for a year of hollow promises i just would never do the second i guess if you're making promises that's a bit different i think the second one is the employee asks for a pay rise, which I don't have any issue with, as long as it's not happening every like three months, but an employee asks certainly annually for a pay rise and gives a good reason as to why.

9:13And in Steph's case, you'd be saying, I'm doing three people's jobs and I haven't had a pay rise. It's a more than fair question. And the third one is, and this is what sounds like we both think she should do, is test the market. And this goes to your point on what's the demand like for Steph's skills is test the market. The best time to get a job is if you, So please Luxury Scapes employees turn off now. But the best time to get a job is if you've currently got a job. You've got much more demand in the marketplace. You've got much more bargaining position. You don't have to take stuff because you've got alternatives.

9:44So the best time is to test the market. Not necessarily go and get another job, but go and see what the market price. Let's say Steph's earning$150 ,000 a year and somebody offers her$250 ,000 a year because she's that good. Then Steph can make the decision, do I go to this next place? And there's always risks around changing jobs. so the grass is always greener, the new job will always make it sound better than it is. It could end up being really bad. So there's always risk with moving. But what I think is completely justifiable is to go and get that$250 ,000 a year offer and go back to the manager and say, I've been offered$250 ,000 a year.

10:15I love it here. I want to stay, but I'm only being paid$150 ,000. If you're able to give me$200 ,000, which is less than my market price, but more than on now, I'd love to stay. And that's a really great way of asking for a pay rise without putting a gun to the head of the employer. Obviously, there is the risk the employer says, you know what, I'm not going to pay you anymore and you're welcome to take the other job. But that to me is a really inoffensive way to ask for a pay rise. And I think a really good way to get a pay rise. What about if, by the way, I think your list of three things is very good.

10:42I think she's at number two. I think she's kind of asked for a pay rise and they've kind of said, just be patient. They just haven't gotten to particular numbers, right? So I think she's already further down that road. can I ask you this about number three so in my experience when someone has a particular job in a particular company that they've been offered even when they stay they haven't really stayed because in their mind they already had passed this line that says emotionally I've prepared myself to leave this business and so you can hang on to them but generally you hang on to them generally for not much longer a year or something what about if she went out and said I'm going to go to look at what's in the market, do a few interviews, not go to final interview, get a feel on pay, and then have a more candid conversation with her boss saying, listen, I've been approached by headhunters, or I've spoken to recruiters, whatever, give a lead in.

11:37There's these jobs out there that are paying$210,$180, significantly more. I don't want to keep going down this road, and I haven't gone into like the late stage of these discussions, but we should have a conversation about whether my future's here or whether it's not because if it's not, I think I should just keep looking around and you should have some time to prepare for my eventual departure from this business. That to me feels less, more likely that it could end in a happy continuing long-term relationship in the current business. That's just how far you want to go. It's both the same thing.

12:14I think if you get to the end, then in your mind, you've kind of left. And it's hard to say. No, I think so. I think the point where you leave is where you accept the offer. At that point, then the employees almost certainly go on. You can sometimes try and keep them. It's usually a waste of time. I agree, certainly at the point of acceptance. I think at the point of offer, there still is the ability to turn back. So it just depends on how far you want to push it. And obviously, the further you get to that offer, the more likely your current employer will take you seriously. So it's kind of just a degree of a degree.

12:47I think you can do either. Your way is certainly less in your face, less offensive, less risky, but probably also less impactful. And if Steph's employer is listening to this podcast, which is not unlikely, I would say, what the hell are you doing? Like go and talk to Steph now and give her a pay rise and start giving her a lot of love because this is the dream employee that basically has picked up all this other workload for no other benefit except promises on the future because she trusts you and she likes working for the business, this is the kind of employer you do not want to lose. Like you should be paying her over the odds to keep her.

13:27Well, not just Steph's employer. We have thousands and thousands of employers, founders who listen and I think we're all in the boat. We probably are some incredible employees who we are sort of, and maybe not to that extent, this sounds pretty extreme, but you don't take seriously enough and you don't give the respect they deserve and you don't give my cto shy is very good at at really giving people pay rises out of so we don't like out of cycle pay rises but shy is outstanding at real talent where we need to pay uh real talent more than what they're on whether it's giving them ltis whether it's giving you a pay rise he's really good at sort of sniffing the breeze and seeing we actually we don't want idea looking for jobs we want to make sure he's he's 100 % loyal and he's not even thinking about looking so we're going to make sure we're we're at or very close to market.

14:08I think every employer who's listening, we've got many, many thousands of them should be heeding that advice and so should we. There's good news. I'm not looking for a job. I'm completely committed to this podcast despite your two years of empty promises to me. Three years. I'm still here. There you go. I like the way you correct me on that. That's good. But the last thing I want to say on this topic is if you do get a pay rise in our hypothetical numbers from 150k to 200k then the size of the target on your back just increased materially and so you better deliver because the high paid people inside organizations there is much lower tolerance for low performance because they are expensive and so i think you know what's the spider-man quote with great great power comes great responsibility yeah well with great pay comes great no risk i guess so responsibility and more importantly risk right like as your pay goes up your risk goes up it's why 10 years of public company ceos are often so short like that's something else to keep in mind as well expensive people um need to deliver i think the thing is and this goes to the original point is you you want to you know you're always going to get paid less than the value you create because otherwise no employer is going to pay you more because completely doesn't work so you want to get relatively close to the value create but you're never going to get the exact value you create.

15:30So like a salesperson who brings in 5 million bucks isn't going to be paid 4.9 million. They might get paid 500 ,000. So there's always going to be a multiplier and great leaders recognize that you need to be fair with your team, but not stupid. So you don't want to overpay somebody and give them close to the value, but you want to make sure they're getting some value for the value they contribute. It sounds like Steph is just not getting paid recompensurate to the values you create and that needs to be fixed. And Steph might need to fix it, take it into your own hands and fix it yourself by looking at the market and seeing while other jobs are out there and having a conversation where the bargaining power is much more equal.

16:02It sounds like you don't have equal bargaining power because you've got no alternative. You need a BATNA, best alternative to negotiated outcome. You've got no BATNA now at the moment. So go get yourself a BATNA, which is another job somewhere else. Great question. We'll go to a super quick break. Back with question number three in just a moment.

16:25our final question this week guys comes in from shane who asks a topical question events like the recent attempted assassination of donald trump again are shocking but do they actually change anything or does the political system absorb them and move on as normal your thoughts does that mean the the white house correspondence dinner thing is that we're referring to here i mean that wasn't exactly an attempted assassination of donald trump i think i know that i'm i think it was here it was an attempted assassination of someone in the administration possibly ideally him but i don't think it was as specific as particularly targeting We don't know because he never got in the room, but it feels like he would have been going for the big man.

17:10But the question is the same irrespective of that, I guess. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Probably one of the most dangerous jobs in the world is being president. So four have been assassinated, McKinley, Garfield, Kennedy, and Lincoln, obviously. And there's been a couple other close calls. Reagan, famously in 1981, was shot by John Hinckley because he was trying to impress Jodie Foster. So there's been – and obviously Trump himself was narrowly – was almost assassinated last year, and another one that didn't come as close. So it is a really dangerous job. And we're in an era of a lot of killings.

17:42And I think the stats are slightly better for mass killings in the US this year, perversely, but it's still horrific. And it's pretty easy to get guns, and especially in the US. So if you look at the data, a lot of assassins simply want to, you can argue about the mental illness point, but want to impress somebody, want to create a name for themselves, want to be someone that they've got, most of them are sort of these incel loser, 25-year-old dudes. who have achieved nothing, will achieve nothing. And this guy, this latest guy, this Thomas Cole guy, fits that sort of narrative. He's 31, but he sort of hasn't achieved anything.

18:13And they tend to want notoriety by killing someone famous. So whether you agree with Trump or don't, I think there's political violence. And there's been other acts of political violence, like Gabby Giffords in, I think it was 2008. And there's been plenty of instances of political violence in recent times. And to me, it feels like, I'm not sure these people are actually trying to change anything to the question asked. I think they're just trying to build some sort of notoriety for themselves and I think I hate to fall back on the mental illness point but I think in these cases there's clearly some issues mentally with these people almost always male or pretty much always males always sort of 20 to 35 in this they tend to always fit this similar pattern and I don't think they're necessarily ideologues at all I think that's probably the last thing for them I don't think they want to change anything I think they just want to I want to get famous I think this guy doesn't it doesn't really fit the same thing though he when you say he hasn't achieved anything i think that's a bit rough like he went to a good university he's a teacher seemed to have been a popular teacher he's a tutor yeah but it's a bit perplexing about this and i like i think it's a combination of i want to stand out amongst the 350 million people in the u.s because i feel like i'm small and insignificant and i have no power and decisions are being made that affect my life and that I think are terrible and I can't do anything about it.

19:30You know, in Japan, the assassination of Abe was someone, I think some decision had very adversely affected him or his mum or his family in some way. And so, listen, there is almost always, I think it's rough to call it mental illness. Well, Abe wasn't president at the time, was he? No, he wasn't. He had retired, that's right. But, like, it was the same thing. it was a policy thing that and I think mental illness is possibly that not the right way to describe it because the way I think about mental illness is you have this illness and then you get treated for it and hopefully you get better I think these people just have personality faults and like they probably I'm going to be a bit technical and say they probably would fall into like the DSM-5 categorization of mental illness but I think this is more personality problems often as opposed to something that the person is going through or something that's happened um and it's not i think it's very terrible mostly to answer the question i'll answer this question in two ways one is mostly if you kill the president i don't think it makes much of a difference except obviously to them and the people that care about them but in terms of the country there's a vice president the vice president will step in and the policies will be largely unchanged in my view might be different now with trump i think the people that hate trump might get in something even worse than their bargain for with J.D.

20:52Vance coming in. I don't think it will be better for them in any way, shape or form if that happens. But I also think that there is not much in society that is as bad as killing an elected leader because, you know, when you murder someone in society and you look at the name of the case in the court, it's not the dead person against the person who killed them. it's the crown right against because it's an offense against the state to run around killing in america it's the people versus but yeah yeah the people right and so because it's an offense against the state to kill people because it undermines the social fabric that we all live under and it's we're all you know one millimeter away from chaos and bedlam and so we try to hold it together and i think killing an elected leader is a step beyond that and maybe the president is the worst of all.

21:47It's treacherous. Like it's an act of treason. And I generally am not in favor of the death penalty for crimes at all. But I think if ever I was going to consider it, something like assassinating a president, I mean, that probably starts falling into that category. And Australia is not immune. I mean, we've had some political violence. Thankfully, it hasn't succeeded. But I think we might be in an era of rising political violence. which is worrying, although Americans have always liked shooting their president. We're in an area of increased polarization for sure. I'm not sure political violence is – like the three Trump attempts, that's pretty extreme, but it feels like we're in an area of pretty significant polarization.

22:30But Americans have always liked shooting their presidents. I'd say that sounds flippant, but like as you just said, I mean it's impressive you can reel off the four off the top of your head. Like basically it's just happened quite a lot in the US. Garfield, McKinley and Lincoln was all in like sort of 40 years. Lincoln was 63 and then I can't remember the exact Garfield and McKinley years, but they were within sort of the next 40 years. It's pretty remarkable. And then obviously you had Kennedy 60 years after that. So there was that incredible period. And Kennedy was not a polarising president, but obviously Lincoln resided over.

23:06I think he was. He was in many ways, but he was certainly a crusading president. He was a Whitlam-like president in the US. The time of Lincoln was the most polarized time in the history of the United States, right? And so, and I think, you know, we're not at civil war stage in the US today. And the polarization is not as great as during the civil war. People would say it's more polarized than ever. They need to go read some history of the lead up to the civil war. But I think we're in a stage where in our lifetimes, we haven't experienced democracies this polarized. and I think the number one thing that all politicians should do and the number one thing there is no chance of them doing is the same, which is moving back from the populism at the extremes and coming back to the centre to save Western civilisation.

23:50But I think we're going to go through a period of polarisation for a while. Thank you, dear. Thank you, Mike. Episode 200 in the can. What an amazing run we've had. Top 0.1 % of podcasts globally. We'll, of course, be back for our big episode on Tuesday, episode 201. Don't miss it. Top point one by Tenya, which is a measurement I would never link to any form of bonus in a company. Let's just keep that in mind. Top point one in terms of popularity. Performance, we've got to say. Performance. That was a great episode as always. We'll be back on Tuesday. Don't miss it.