Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Judd Hoffman, welcome to Fargo Talks.

• Speaker #1

  It's good to be here.

• Speaker #0

  It's been a long time coming, man.

• Speaker #1

  Yes, it has.

• Speaker #0

  It's been a long time coming.

• Speaker #1

  How long have we known each other?

• Speaker #0

  I started FatCo in 2015, I think 2015, 2016, so 10 years.

• Speaker #1

  So if my math's right, that's 11 years.

• Speaker #0

  11 years, 10, 11 years. So you've known each other.

• Speaker #1

  So the finances and numbers are here. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  well, people that know you and know me and know our backgrounds will see this episode and be like. Oh my God, they're on a podcast together.

• Speaker #1

  Yes, they will. Yes, they will.

• Speaker #0

  Which is the absolute best.

• Speaker #1

  2015. Yeah, that sounds about right.

• Speaker #0

  When you came to town here and then I made DPK at Key Biscayne and then we hung out there when I was Mormon and not drinking. I remember it was a tequila sponsored night and I was hanging at my wife at the time. Now my ex was up in the room and it was like midnight. Fire pit.

• Speaker #1

  Fire pit.

• Speaker #0

  I remember that fire pit and we're all hanging out and you're like, do you want to drink? I don't drink. Really? That's right.

• Speaker #1

  Was Katie down there with me? Yes. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And didn't, I think Don Kennedy, someone else joined us. It was a grant grant grant grant joined us and grant.

• Speaker #0

  But there was like five or six people there and I was just hanging out because I just wanted to hang out and get to know all of you. That's right. Fire. And, uh, that was like,

• Speaker #1

  I remember that conversation.

• Speaker #0

  That was one. It was wonderful. Yeah, it was great. And we just, and we always just stayed friends.

• Speaker #1

  Yep.

• Speaker #0

  you know and uh well fortunately unfortunately now due to medication therapy i've gotten through a lot of it so i accept you for who you are and it's fine you know it's all it's all good and um you know you're you're a guy that you're an enigma to me because you're one of the smartest guys in the room i'm not blowing smoke up your skirt you just are you're driven and but you're so good at analyzing people like you're one of the best readers of people i've ever met in my life We had dinner last night with my wife and it turned into like somewhat of a getting to know you FBI interrogation.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I've been told that before.

• Speaker #0

  And Brandy, bless her heart, loves you and was totally down for it because she has no skeletons in her closet. She's like, I'll tell you whatever you wanted. But it was to see you in action was hilarious.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I think I get that from my parents, actually. Do you? Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Why? Like diagnosing because they're doctors? So the diagnosis?

• Speaker #1

  It's just I think that's what they had to do to get through to patients.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  Literally. It's just.

• Speaker #0

  It brings a little closer to you. Perfect. Keep going.

• Speaker #1

  How was that?

• Speaker #0

  Good. So they're diagnosing.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So they, I think, I'm just trying to think because everyone says that a lot. I think in order to get through to people, you have to know who they are first. Right? And so I think I got it from them of just asking the very.

• Speaker #0

  cutting question yeah in a way that's not so cutting yeah yeah i know but i love people though well you're and is that one of the things that like has gotten you to where you are 100 um 100 i i

• Speaker #1

  i equate that portion of my personality with 100 of where i got where i am today literally it's just being able to Not just read people. I think, as you do it well too, it's you read the room, you can read people. And I think also you can hit on what people really want to talk about. Right. And I actually generally like people, which is probably a good thing. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  You're a very curious person.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I definitely am.

• Speaker #0

  Right.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And I mean, you were telling me last night stuff that you're invested in. I mean, we talk about it or not. If you don't want to, it's fine. Thank you. Like you've got a lot of irons in the fire and there's ethical stuff we'll talk about in a little bit, but there's a lot of other different stuff that you're involved in.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And I don't, it's funny you say that. If you notice last night when I talked about is it's not, how do I say this? I don't invest because the investment I invest because I think it's just really cool things people are doing and cool people like I invest in people. So we talked about a product that I really love. We found literally an alcohol that we really love.

• Speaker #0

  You can mention them because we'll clip it and tag them if you want to.

• Speaker #1

  Bar Hill. And I love them. And we absolutely fell in love with it. And so I said, hey, if I like it, other people are going to like it. Why not support them? They also do some really amazing things for bees.

• Speaker #0

  So let's walk through. Is it Bar Hill?

• Speaker #1

  Bar.

• Speaker #0

  Bar Hill.

• Speaker #1

  B-A-R-R.

• Speaker #0

  And they're in Vermont? Vermont. Vermont.

• Speaker #1

  Montpelier. Vermont.

• Speaker #0

  You got it. I got it.

• Speaker #1

  I got it.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. It's only 12 hours. Only 12 hours later, but that's okay. Hang time on that one. Jesus Christ, Judd. But it was because you ordered a bee's knees. And I'm like, what the shit's a bee's knees? And so walk me through what's in it and then how you became acquainted with Bar Hill and became an investor.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I cannot believe this is actually being said. But yeah. Katie and I went to a place called The Inn in Massachusetts. A guy named Jesse made us a drink called Bee's Knees. And he made a drink and he said, I am utilizing a certain gin called Bar Hill. Never heard of it before. And we had it, loved it. And being who I am and Katie who she is, we said we should probably go to the distillery. So she found the distillery one weekend. She said, let's go. And we did it. And we went there and we. Of course, you know I have bees at the house. We love bees. We love what they did. It's a very family-oriented business. They showed us the whole distillery, and I said, how can I not be part of this? And they're just good people. Like, for instance, the guy, they also have a ginger syrup. And the ginger honey syrup I ordered to California and never got there. I called. Guy answered, I forgot his name. I could be Abraham. And he's like, I got returned for some reason. He sent us a new one. But then he sent me something that said, we're also helping the local elementary school. Would you like to be part of that? And I was just like, look who these people are. So yeah, I mean, you're going back to your original thing. I like people that do things for other people and especially with animals. So insects, anything living. I love it.

• Speaker #0

  And then... Let's talk about Florida and what you're doing there with Katie.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. It's wild. I'll be very high level on this one. So we've decided that moving forward the rest of our life, we're going to have a sanctuary. So we're going to rescue any animal that's in need. And it comes from a long story that I told you last night about a bobcat that we befriended in Connecticut. And I don't want to. ever want that to happen to another animal when no one's going to help this animal and so katie and i decided that's what we're doing so florida land animals sanctuary all all non-profit and katie's actually becoming a pilot just so she can rescue animals throughout the u.s that's katie you know so um married a very intelligent way better person than me you did so yeah she is i married up 100 you you you did and she is and that's fine you

• Speaker #0

  And she knows that and you know that.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, she married down.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Well,

• Speaker #1

  look at this.

• Speaker #0

  You're her walking

• Speaker #1

  501c3. Exactly. It is. It's tax-free.

• Speaker #0

  Basically, yeah. So if she could find a way to write you off, that would be… In various ways. That'd be glorious. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  we both married up.

• Speaker #0

  So let's talk about… I want to get into real estate a little bit because that's what we're going to talk about a lot today is, you know, you and I met when you were at First American Title and Fat Co. And you were like, um, President.

• Speaker #1

  I was president of the direct division.

• Speaker #0

  Right. Yep. And I'll never, and I sell the story a thousand times is the socks. I'd met you and you, you came in and just eviscerated our sales manager. And we were number one team here in Vegas. And our sales manager was doing this wonderful open house contest, which I got business from. It was like, it was great, but it was like literally from Memorial day to labor day. How many open houses can you go to? Whoever goes to the most gets a prize. And you come in and you're looking and he's so proud of it. And you look, you go, but aren't your reps supposed to be going to open houses in the first place?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Fuck you doing?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. I always thought it was really interesting that you have to bribe someone to do their job. Just always find that a head scratcher.

• Speaker #0

  And that was the first time I'm like, fuck is this guy? And you were sitting right next to me and you complimented me on my socks. And I had my dad's Louis Vuitton Ashate case that he had working for MetLife when he was living in Astoria, Queens. And he was cold calling on places in Manhattan. Yep. And you caught me on that. And then we just, and then DPK happened. And, you know, we became friends.

• Speaker #1

  Well, you know, it's funny. There's more to that. So you talked about in the beginning about people. So what I've learned to do is find something either to compliment or make fun of, like literally. And good or bad, I think everyone that has met me, it's funny you just said that. Everyone says, you called me out on something. Right. And they remember that. And so, and I remember that I can actually picture that briefcase. I can literally see it and I can see it on the table where you had it. Actually, it was on a chair next to you. I'll never forget that. It's one of these things. And I remember your socks. I don't remember what kind of socks they were, though.

• Speaker #0

  Probably pink.

• Speaker #1

  I think they may. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  it was like my pink face.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  My custom suits. And that's where we met.

• Speaker #1

  And also, too, to be quite honest, we didn't become friends because of that. We became friends, whether you realize this or not. is it was your drive. I just, I remember what I was drawn to you about. It's what I'm drawn to many people that I'm still friends with today is a drive is what you told me is, Hey. And I think I'm getting this correct. Like you had like some kind of restaurant, hot dog stands.

• Speaker #0

  Burger joint, Fargo's drive-thru.

• Speaker #1

  That's it. And I heard that you're like, I didn't know really much about it, but I strategically placed my restaurant, my drive-thru next to someplace. I killed it. You knew nothing about title. You came here, first American, you killed it. I mean, it's just this recognition of pattern of someone else being like. We're friends because you actually work hard, right? You knew nothing about title. No. And you killed it.

• Speaker #0

  Not a thing.

• Speaker #1

  You killed it. And I think you were literally doing stuff like this back then. You were like a Renaissance person.

• Speaker #0

  I was the first one to do live streaming.

• Speaker #1

  That's what it was.

• Speaker #0

  I was doing Periscope, which was owned by Twitter at the time. That's right. And I built my book of business by going to open houses and saying, hey, I'm Jeff Fargo, first American title. Oh, I already work with Fern Flanagan in Chicago. That's nice. How about we get probably three or four hundred people to see your open house right now? Walk me through it and I'm going to film it.

• Speaker #1

  And that's right.

• Speaker #0

  And that's how I literally built my book of business in about a year from zero from nothing.

• Speaker #1

  And which is not again. So going back to it, which is not an easy thing to do. And in real estate, those relationships mean everything. But you actually added value. That's why I was drawn to you. Value driven.

• Speaker #0

  It was like it's either you work with this or some hot girl bringing you donuts.

• Speaker #1

  I'd rather work with the hot girl. You know,

• Speaker #0

  and so most people would, where I was like, well, I'm going to. You're adding value. And people would always say, like when I'd present and they'd say, well, where are the bagels? And I said, well, how about if I make enough money to own an Einstein bagel franchise?

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. Like,

• Speaker #0

  let's think bigger. Let's think bigger.

• Speaker #1

  But on that note, I looked at you the same way they looked at you. Meaning, I was running a division. You were being accretive to that division. I liked you, right? They're the hot. girl selling me donuts at first American, I didn't care about. I care about someone that was actually making me money.

• Speaker #0

  And is that, I mean, you've got to have probably three or four core principles that you, you know, that you kind of live by and how you act. Is that one of them that you've just, that you invest in the people that they, they, they have a drive or they've got some, you know, they have something going on with them that you're like, I need that. I need part of that in my life in some way, shape or form.

• Speaker #1

  It's interesting. I think my core principles have forever changed or forever changing. Let me think if that's one of them. I know my first core principle is treat people how I want to be treated, right? I mean, I just think that's one of those things where I learned later in life, right? Next core principle later in life is don't sweat the small stuff. We talked about that this morning, right? It's just life is too short to sweat the small stuff, but you're right. I also invest in people that I know they'll invest back. Almost emotionally, physically, whatever it may be, I don't waste time with people that won't invest back. Whatever form, fashion it is, whatever it is. So I just won't waste my time with people that won't waste time on themselves. Like, it's just if you're not going to invest in yourself, neither am I.

• Speaker #0

  Do you think, and again, like with social media is so negative and divisive. And God bless the World Cup is like we're being told by people all over the world how amazing we are. And they're going into like. fucking Walmart, you know, or Bass Pro Shop, Chick-fil-A, Target, and saying, oh my God, we don't, Buc-ee's, what a testament to Buc-ee's, the World Cup has been, and they've paid dick for sponsorship, and what they're going to get out of this is bananas,

• Speaker #1

  right,

• Speaker #0

  and it's, because of that, it's like, all of a sudden, I think we sometimes don't know how good we have it.

• Speaker #1

  You know, it's interesting, you just said something that I heard, I forgot, Who said it on the Knicks? But if you look at the most decisive state in the country, which is New York, and to get the five boroughs together for one team doing, I think the world kind of needs stuff like that. I also think, too, not to get off on a tangent, but the World Cup is something so tactile, where everything is over these screens, everything to have 65,000 people bouncing up and down in Guadalajara together. Is something I think this world kind of needs right now.

• Speaker #0

  We're healing.

• Speaker #1

  Oh my goodness. Right? Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And like, look at the Scots. They're in Florida now, but what they did in Boston.

• Speaker #1

  With that. And also the Norwegians. It's just everyone going down. It's just the rowing. I think it really is people love being together almost again. Like it really is.

• Speaker #0

  It's awesome. And to me, it's just we needed it. You know, we get... I've talked, I did a post on one of my walks and said, you know, this is wonderful. What's going on with the world cup. I love this. So that, and then though, again, of course the comments come in. Well, they're only going to the blue cities. They need to go to red cities. And I go, and I said, no, they're going to city American cities. That's all that matters.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Honestly, quite frankly, I don't know what red, what blue they're going to cities.

• Speaker #0

  They're going to United States of America. They're spending their money. It's good for the economy. They're saying good things. I'm a firm believer that they're going to go back home and they're going to make it now. We have to come back. And their friends have FOMO because they didn't come. And they're going to go, oh, my God, I have to go to Buc-ee's. I have to go to Target. And they're going to come and travel the United States.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And the tourism they were saying for the last two years have dropped in the U.S. I think this is going to change it. I agree with you. I just think it's getting the world together. But, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  I want to bring things back to you. Everything on your plate. What's the one thing you can't stop thinking about?

• Speaker #1

  With everything on my plate, what I can't stop thinking about is how the world is changing, right? And it's not what you were talking about, what we were just talking about. It's how fast things are changing because of technology. I don't think we've ever had the pace that we have right now and how things are just totally different. For instance, what keeps me up at night is I have a nephew. He's going to be going to college. What are you studying at college right now? Right? Those guys and gals that went to MIT to study Python six years ago, Claude does Python for me now. I don't code, right? My codex does all that for me. That's what's on my mind all the time is how do I become part of that ecosystem and ethos? Before it's too late, quite frankly. And I don't even know what too late is anymore.

• Speaker #0

  I was going to say, what's the tipping point of too late?

• Speaker #1

  I don't know what it is anymore. I mean, that's what keeps me up at night. Like, that's what I think about all the time. And quite frankly, to really bring it back to here is, so what I've decided, quite frankly, is what's an industry that's always, always last to get that technology? And I've been in it for 25 years. I was president of a company. That literally didn't have to innovate because no one demanded it. Right. And so I believe talking about real estate a little bit, real estate agents don't get that first because people undersell people under just they're just not looking at real estate the way they should. And I think right now is time for real estate to be one of the first people to adopt the technology. And they usually aren't. They usually aren't. So I'm betting on it. That's what's keeping me up at night too. I'm betting on it. It's a tough bet.

• Speaker #0

  I was on LinkedIn this morning. And full disclosure, we work together. You're a client. And so I run your LinkedIn stuff. And so I'm doing some content for you this morning. And what comes up is like the chief economist for FATCO, First American Title, talking about AI. And it was basically him saying we are 100% behind how AI can help with the numbers, the coding part. where your spreadsheets can be now faster, better. But it's not a very trustworthy platform. And I was like, what? Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  I don't understand that.

• Speaker #0

  What? Like, you just don't have the right filters in place, brother. Like, it's an extremely trustworthy platform. If you know what you're doing.

• Speaker #1

  Crap in, crap out.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. Garbage in, garbage out. And so, but that led me, it's to your point exactly that here's a multi-billion dollar company saying, EEEEH we got our toe in the water like everyone else is doing with AI, but we're not really going to look at it the way we should.

• Speaker #1

  I think also there's a fear of adoption and the fear of adoption, I think comes from, it's multifaceted. Some larger companies are afraid to adopt, not because they can't, it's because they're afraid of the down, the downward effect it has on their employees. Right? So if you have a team with five people, And you know, if you adopt this technology, three of those people aren't going to be around tomorrow and you're going to be more efficient and make more money. What do you do? Right. I've been friends with the people I work for and worth for 20 years. If I adopt this, I may not need them anymore. That's scary. And if you're an executive and one of the large companies, regardless of what it is, how do you manage to that being people first? Right. It's places to work.

• Speaker #0

  It's Sophie's choice.

• Speaker #1

  It really is. And I think. I think, again, this is what keeps me up at night. If I'm CEO of a large company, what do I do? Am I the first and feel it the worst? And then eventually become the best or they wait for somebody else and maybe miss it. It's just a, it's a, it's a very difficult, this is unprecedented.

• Speaker #0

  It's, it's a time of our life that we've never seen before. And I think you take the industrial age and the Renaissance, all the things, right? When the web first came out, when self take all that, put it together, pale in comparison to what we're experiencing right now.

• Speaker #1

  Nate Baker of Qualia. I'll give him a shout out. I did a Judd walks on this and I'm going to get the quote wrong. But he said something that resonated so deeply in me. And it was such a prophetic statement. And it was so incendiary to people. He said, AI, he likened it to fire. And I forgot what he said. It was fire and something else. And it was such an amazing comment. And it just resonated. I think it's exactly spot on. This is as important as a caveman figuring out how to light fire.

• Speaker #0

  then If we're at that tipping point in our lives, why is real estate so slow to change?

• Speaker #1

  You know what? I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I'll tell you exactly what I mean by that is selling into real estate for the past 20 years. This is what everyone says. Real estate agents, they don't know. They don't want technology and they can't learn it. That's why. That's the first thing. Second thing is people sell real estate agents short, where in fact, I think that's where that's where the money is going to be made. Like quite frankly, real estate agents are the best small business out there. They spend all their time marketing, selling, trying to get new customers, literally marketing themselves everywhere and every place. They go out every day as a small business. It's one of the biggest small businesses in the country and it touches everybody. I don't care if you rent. I don't care if you own. I don't care if you need a plumber. You go to your real estate agent. They know everybody. So going back to your question, I think technology companies, I think marketing companies, I think everyone sells the realtor short. And I'm quite frankly betting the opposite.

• Speaker #0

  I've always told the realtors when I was working with them, you wake up unemployed every day. Every single day. And you better have a fire in your belly because there's here in Las Vegas at that time like 16,000 other people out there calling on the Fizbo's. Yep. doing open houses, you know, farming, doing all the things.

• Speaker #1

  Knocking, knocking, knocking.

• Speaker #0

  Working your SOI. Like, again, it's almost any large city. You throw a dead cat, you're going to hit five realtors that you know. Yep, yep. It just happens.

• Speaker #1

  And billboard and a sign and a bench.

• Speaker #0

  And so, you know, how is it that you separate yourself and also, like, getting back to the AI thing that we're going to talk about is they're not making any more time. There's a certain amount of time. You get up in the morning and go to bed. So what do you do? during that time.

• Speaker #1

  By the way, if you can figure out how to give me more time, I would really appreciate that.

• Speaker #0

  I can do that. Yeah, I can do that.

• Speaker #1

  Can you give me 25 hours in a day?

• Speaker #0

  I can give you back two a day. When did you first look at how real estate agents actually handle their paperwork and think this is broken?

• Speaker #1

  Oh yeah, that's a great question. To be quite honest, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. I love to take credit for this, but... I've always seen this as just being a lag, but at the end of the days, I made a lot of money on that paperwork in title for a long time. That paperwork kept me employed and 9,000 people employed. But, you know, my founder, co-founder, Ajay Shah, bought a house and he had to go through an avid. He had to literally go through this piece of paper with his wife and check a box of every little crack for three hours. He sold the house. And then his father passed and he had to sell his father's house and he had to go through the same thing. And he called me up and said, this got to be a better way. I said, what do you mean? It's the way it's always done. What do you mean? And he said, Judd, I think there's something we can do here. And quite frankly, that's what AI was made to do, right? It was made for to shuffle paper and to fill in forms and to fill in. Anything you wanted to fill in without you having to do it. If you can think it, it can do it. And so you asked the question, it wasn't me. But once I heard it, it's my life's mission now. It's my life's mission.

• Speaker #0

  Tell me about the real estate agent that keeps a laptop under their seat.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so it's funny. I think you know the story. We were going around to real estate agents trying to figure out how to utilize AI. I got to be quite honest. We didn't know what the best use case. for an agent for AI was. And lo and behold, we'll call him Mitch because that's actually his name. I always say Mitch, please, every time they say his name. He said that he keeps a laptop underneath the passenger seat of his car that his wife doesn't know about. That anytime he has an offer, a listing, whatever it may be, he runs out to his car, pulls out his laptop, finds a wireless. If he can't find a network, he goes to near a Starbucks, logs in, and has to fill out this form, this PDF, because he can't do it virtually on his, sorry, can't do it on his phone. Soon as I heard that, soon as I heard that, wait a second, companies out there aren't investing enough in real estate where Mitch can actually just get on his phone and fill out a PDF. How dare you? It's just not right. Not right. Not right to the 220,000 real estate agents in California and not right to the 2.2 million agents in the United States. How is that? How is that a thing?

• Speaker #0

  People outside of real estate have no idea how much an agent actually does in a day. Walk me through what's really on their plate.

• Speaker #1

  So if you think about it, an agent is a full service business, full service. They get up and they have to open the shop, right? We can go through the whole thing. We can talk to them like a restaurant. They have to open the shop. They have to call their prospects. They have to call their customers. They have to figure out what am I selling today? Who am I selling today? And once they have that. customer. They're their assistant. They're their cleaning crew. They're their marketing team. They are their psychiatrist. They are their plumber. They are everything. So if you think about your realtor that sold a house for you, they didn't just market your house. They did everything. And also they're a lawyer. They're an accountant. They are everything. They fill out contracts, Jeff. The people don't realize those... Things that you're filling out with your realtor, that's a contract. So they're also a lawyer. Like people don't give a real estate agent enough credit. So when people say 1%, 2%, 3% they're getting paid, I say, why not?

• Speaker #0

  A lot of times it's not enough.

• Speaker #1

  I agree.

• Speaker #0

  For what they're doing.

• Speaker #1

  100%. They are literally taking your biggest asset and selling it for you. Or they're buying one of the biggest assets that you'll ever purchase.

• Speaker #0

  People have no idea if you're a buyer's agent, how many times you're taking a buyer out. And those people, you don't sign a BBA and they have going with another realtor or they go to a new home development and you spent months taking these people around. Oh, we went into Richmond, America and we met Gail there and Gail's going to take care of us. But thanks for your time.

• Speaker #1

  Yep. And you know, it's funny. I'm just going to mention him. I didn't realize what that took. A guy is a realtor named Jason Barry in San Diego. And when Kay and I first moved to San Diego, we had no clue. No clue. He spent so much time with us, which I just never, you know, I never purchased a large house before. I never purchased anything like that. And so he took us around for weeks. And if I monetized how much Jason Barry got paid and how much he did for us, it was tens, if not 20, $30,000 worth of his time. And we were looking at a certain place where he said to us, do yourself a favor. Have you checked this other place? We checked the other place. We moved to the other community. And because of that, the appreciation of that house that he made a stretch to, I would pay him 10%. Because if I would have purchased the house that he spent three months taking us around for free, if I would have purchased that house, let's just make up numbers for $500,000 instead of the $700,000, that $500,000 was worth $700,000 in a year. That $700,000 was worth $1.8, Jason. It's just a realtor is you ask what a realtor does. They're also a financial advisor. They're, they do everything, everything.

• Speaker #0

  There's a belief that AI is going to replace real estate agents. What's your take?

• Speaker #1

  There's my take. That's just, it's laughable to me. Well, you know what? Let's be honest. The real estate agents we talked about in the beginning, they're lazy and not doing anything. No matter what industry you're in right now, if you're lazy and don't work hard, you're going to get out of the way. It's not AI. People are blaming AI for all these, also the cuts in all of these large companies. People are just blaming AI to cut the fat. But to answer your question, real estate agent, the biggest thing, the most fundamental thing an agent does is market and help you find a home. Is bring you through that home. Is, Judd, what are you and Katie looking for in a home? Let me, you know what? I think I know that.

• Speaker #0

  If an agent can spend 95% of the time doing that instead of being an accountant, instead of being a financial advisor, instead of being a lawyer, instead of being a contract filler, instead of being an assistant. I don't know how AI can actually right now show Katie and I a home where her and I and our cats can live.

• Speaker #1

  I'll play devil's advocate.

• Speaker #0

  Please.

• Speaker #1

  Do you think there's ever going to be a world where you can hop into your Tesla robo car, robo taxi, driverless, right? And get taken to a home. And on the way there, there's a monitor. And through a hive-minded thing, through a real hive-minded realtor AI company, it's telling you, hey, we're going to go to this house first. And when you get there, here is a optimist robot. And that is dressed in appropriate whatever and takes you through the house, answers any questions you have. And then. And then you hop in and it's all automated. There's no human interaction whatsoever. Do you think there's ever going to be a place for that?

• Speaker #0

  I can't answer that, but this is what I'll say. I'm all about reality, right? Who is the richest man in the world right now?

• Speaker #1

  Elon Musk.

• Speaker #0

  Why does he have Tesla stores? Why? He doesn't need them. People like to kick the tire and with other people. Also, you can go on a website right now and buy Tesla. But the reason why you bought that Tesla is because you were in a car the day before, like we are in yours, and we experienced it. There's no way that I'm spending a dollar on a house without some kind of professional there showing me something. And you know what? I'll even go further, Jeff. If a realtor wants to be that little robot with a face walking around with me, maybe. And I can poll 10 out of 10 people. No one's buying a house without someone there advising them.

• Speaker #1

  I agree. I think it's what's the biggest financial decision, the biggest purchase you're ever going to make is a home. And I want a professional that knows me, that knows that area, depending on what I have going on in my life, like schools, if I have kids. Or if I'm older, 55 and up community, what activities do they have? Like who else is living there that I could talk to? And they could say, this is great. Or if I could do it all over again, I change this. Like it's, there's that intrinsic value. I think that people overlook that when they classify a realtor.

• Speaker #0

  100%, 100%. I don't know. You know what? I'd also push back on that. I don't think anybody that's actually gone through the arduous process of buying a home would ever say, I don't need a realtor. I just don't think anybody will say that. But yet people continue to say that AI is going to replace them. The disconnect there is incredible to me. I've never heard anyone say, I didn't need that person. I heard people say, I go on Zillow and I found it myself. Then what did you do? You called a realtor, right? Like, and so it's laughable. But you know what? Come to me in 10 years. I don't know. That's what keeps me up at night.

• Speaker #1

  Again, it's like, I love this conversation because I want to come back in like five years and have the same conversation and be like, hey, or even like next year and go, okay, this is where we're at now after watching the replay of this because stuff is changing so fast.

• Speaker #0

  Too fast, actually. It's almost too fast. And quite frankly, you know, going back to what you said is I'm building a business, betting on things that I don't know. to be true tomorrow, right? I'm also betting on large companies with these AI models that they're going to keep getting better. Like the crazy thing about the future, our future is we're betting on a lot of things that we don't know. It's just, and quite frankly, I would not want to be 18 right now trying to figure out what I'm doing in four years. I knew when I was 18, if I go to school and study a certain thing, that job was waiting for me later. We don't know that now. We don't know that is. It's scary, but incredibly exciting at the same time.

• Speaker #1

  A hundred percent.

• Speaker #0

  It's scary.

• Speaker #1

  It is the most terrifying. And having, you know, a stepdaughter that's 17 and a daughter that's 17 about to graduate high school next year. And having talks with both of them about what do you want to do? And it's something we've talked about. When we were kids, you went to college.

• Speaker #0

  Yep.

• Speaker #1

  If you want to be successful, you went to college. Now I'm like, okay, Alex, my daughter, who has a 3.8 GPA and can go to UNLV full ride tomorrow. They will open the gates for her. And part of me is like, honey, you ever thought about a trade? How about being a electrician?

• Speaker #0

  I was just about to say that.

• Speaker #1

  How about being a plumber, HVAC? You're bulletproof.

• Speaker #0

  Yep.

• Speaker #1

  Then with AI.

• Speaker #0

  That's what private equity is buying up left, right, and sideways. Every plumber, every plumber, every HVAC. And you said it, paleontology. It's tactile using your hands.

• Speaker #1

  I just, and again, I love my kids. I want them to flourish and grow and do their thing. But if you're going to spend X amount of time and dollars in an education, what's the ROI? What's the return on that? I don't. I don't know.

• Speaker #0

  Yep. Yep.

• Speaker #1

  You know? And so it's a tough conversation, but I've been open with my daughter to say, you know, I know that you don't really do it, but you might want to look at a trade.

• Speaker #0

  Yep. Yep.

• Speaker #1

  You know, get in the carpenter's union.

• Speaker #0

  Yep.

• Speaker #1

  Pipe fitters union.

• Speaker #0

  Also, you know, these people that own these laundromats now and car washes, it's just like, if you would have told me 10 years ago, it's, you're better off owning 13 laundromats than going to dental school. I would have told you we're crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

• Speaker #1

  Someone told you the PDF is the most undefeated technology ever invented. Why is a decades old file format still running real estate?

• Speaker #0

  You know, I wish I had a really great answer for that. It's because no one's betting on real estate. Like I said before, I don't know what it is. And I'm not sure why real estate, real estate has the worst PR out there right now. Everyone bets against the real estate agent. If you think about it. Everyone says we should go directly to consumer. We should go past the real estate agent. Nobody has said I'm going to invest money into this old form to make a real estate agent's life better because they won't adopt it. That's why it's undefeated is it's not the PDF is they're not giving a real estate agent enough credit to maybe want to learn something new. So give them something that's 32 years old that you cannot do. On your iPhone that you just spent $1,000 on.

• Speaker #1

  And Adobe's the worst. It's the worst. They're the worst.

• Speaker #0

  It hasn't been improved in decades. In decades.

• Speaker #1

  We've got reusable rockets and self-driving cars. And an agent still fills out the same form by hand in the parking lot. How is that still a thing?

• Speaker #0

  It's not going to be. It just can't be. It can't be. I'm going to keep going back to the same premise I have. Because we're going through it right now. It's still a thing because agents allow it to be. Agents are saying, I don't want to learn something new and no one's giving me anything new. But there is a tipping point now with AI. You don't have to learn anything. There's no new app. It used to be, here's a new app. That's the first thing that failed. Or here's a new workflow that just doesn't fit into your day. Or you know what? Your broker came out with something new. But when you leave your broker, you don't have to use that anymore. It's going to be something new. There's been so many failures to launch for real estate agents. It's just fatigue at this point. No new apps. AI is there to say, you know what? You don't have to learn anything. Tell me what you need. I will take care of it. Right? AI is a beautiful thing. That's why. You know why also? AI didn't exist two years ago. It wasn't a thing. This has changed not just real estate. It's changed everything.

• Speaker #1

  I think the realtors that are going to, that first wave that'll be successful are the ones that are always like looking for the best CRM and looking for the best model for their team, for their brokerage. Whoever is that person and that mindset of growth mentality, they're the ones that are going to kill it with AI.

• Speaker #0

  And you know what's interesting? You just, you said something that made me think of something. Also, all of the money, the companies have... poured into real estate and AI has been through marketing. Let me help you with your marketing. Let me help you get to your customers faster. Let me help you organize your CRM. Everyone's looking at the real cool, flashy stuff. No one's looking at the non-sexy PDF. And like I talk about all the time, that's where Asians lose a lot of their money, is spending eight hours going through a document, making sure there's a checkbox. And so it's interesting. It's just really interesting to me that the marketing has been where AI has been really, really, really executed on real estate.

• Speaker #1

  For someone that's never seen it, what does Ethica actually let an agent do?

• Speaker #0

  Theoretically, spend more time with their consumer, period, right? Mitch doesn't have to have that laptop underneath his car and his seat anymore. Also, if he… I'll tell you exactly in real life we saw the other day. You're at dinner. An offer comes in. Real estate agent says, I'm so sorry. I have to go back to my office. Or I have to go to my car and find a wireless hotspot. You can step outside for two minutes. Make a phone call. Go back to their family. You know, we were joking about time. Ethica theoretically and now practically can give you time back. It's not sexy. We're filling forms in for you. anywhere, any place. It's just not sexy, but it works.

• Speaker #1

  That's all that matters.

• Speaker #0

  It just works. Right.

• Speaker #1

  That's all that matters.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  What does it change for an agent when something like this comes free through their association?

• Speaker #0

  Say that again?

• Speaker #1

  What does it change for an agent when something like this comes, and this is through CAR, it's free through their association? How does that change, say, a CAR agent right now? Because Ethica's partnered with CAR.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So... Yeah, we have, our product is a free member benefit through CAR. And so it doesn't, the great thing, Jeff, is it doesn't change anything. Meaning it doesn't, it costs them a whole zero dollars. And you know what? I'm just going to be really blunt. The biggest cost right now for an agent is actually sitting down and learning how to use something. It's literally learning how to use something. you That's what the most frustrating thing to me is. I'm watching why technology isn't given to agents. I have something that's free. I have something with no app. I have something that literally takes five minutes to learn. And 55% of the agents are like, no, I'll still do something that I learned 30 years ago. That's why companies don't spend money on real estate. And I refuse to let that happen. I just refuse to let that happen. I refuse to let an agent tell me it's too much money. It's free. It's too hard to use. You use chat and I don't have enough time. Yes, you do. And so I'm going to make sure that every agent through car understands, give me five minutes. I'll give you three or four hours of your week back. Right. But you just have to use it. Just have to use it.

• Speaker #1

  That to me is the biggest conversation going on right now. I'm a guy that has an AI company that I advise companies on throughput and I give them their time back. And people can't grasp that concept.

• Speaker #0

  You said something the other day that really, really resonated with me. And we haven't talked about it. I think it was on one of your walks. I'm not sure. But you said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. And I'm going to get this wrong. But it was, I don't know the percentage, but. Most people don't go to Yahoo or Google to look up restaurants anymore, look up wines, look up services. I don't. I go into chat and I say, I'm going to Vegas. I need a restaurant. And it finds me those restaurants. Why aren't people using more of that? Why aren't the biggest restaurant chains making sure they are optimized using AI? And into chat, I don't. To your point, I don't understand it. It's wild. It's wild to me. It's wild. Absolutely wild.

• Speaker #1

  AI has taken over Yahoo and TripAdvisor. In terms of when people are looking for a local customer service, they're going to AI. And that number is just going to keep going up,

• Speaker #0

  Just like Assam. We went to dinner last night. Usually, I just take out my phone, take a picture of the menu. My chat knows me, knows what I love to drink, asks me what I'm eating. Not just the best, best price, best for that day, best for what I'm eating. It's incredible. This is the new world. I feel bad for this arm.

• Speaker #1

  Well, I've talked about this. I look at it now through a lens of when I walk out my door in the morning and I get in my car and whoever I'm interacting with, I'm now like, are they going to have a job in a year, three years, five years, ten years down the road? Like the barista. Yep. Gone.

• Speaker #0

  Yep.

• Speaker #1

  Sorry, sorry, baristas. Sorry, but it's going to be a Tesla Optimus robot that's going to look, hey, Jeff, how are you? Want another double macchiato venti whatever? Right. It's going to look exactly what I want. How's Alex? How's she doing? How's she doing at UNLV? They're going to know, and it's going to be in a way that's so soft. You're like, oh, she's doing great. Thank you. Or they know that you just want to get your order in, and that's it. And that's where we're headed.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. You know what? You know what? It's funny. Why I just looked away is I agree with that. I'm almost hoping it's not, though. Right. Like sometimes you need that human interaction, but it probably will. But you know why? It's more efficient. It's faster. It's smarter and monetize the heart of it. Of course, 100%, 100%. And something you said too, which really is I think about all the time now is how do I force people to do something that they really don't want to do, but they know they have to. And that's where we are right now is they know they have to. They don't want to, but they know they have to.

• Speaker #1

  It is something that... Again, we keep going back to this concept of a tipping point. And the realtors that jump on board are the ones now, I think, that are going to be wildly successful. Wildly successful. The other ones are going to be the ones that sit back and go, I'm reworking to 2005. I made 400 grand this year. Fuck you. Sorry. You don't fucking care. As a title rep, we don't fucking care. Oh, my God. More therapy sessions with agents about that shit. But it's like... If you are on board with this thing, and again, I'm biased because I've seen the platform, like what Ethica is doing, you're literally giving an agent back hours.

• Speaker #0

  Hours.

• Speaker #1

  Hours of their week back.

• Speaker #0

  You know what? Also, too, let's not talk about time, right? Let's talk about compliance. Let's talk about like just regulatory. We know what's right and what's wrong. Go. We went through, I think it was 15 RPAs, just residential purchase agreements. 12 weren't right. They weren't filled out correctly. They were executed. Houses were being lived in. This legal contract was wrong. So what people don't understand is someone come back and say, this wasn't done right. I don't want the house anymore. Like real estate agents act as attorneys and they're brokers. have to look at these forms. They have five days to stamp these forms. Forget about time. What about compliance? What about just, you don't have to worry about missing something on a form anymore. How about peace of mind, right? And so you can look at AI, whether it be ethical, whether it be anything, forget about just time, look at every facet that it does for you, right? And I'll just say this, car is an amazing partner, but boy, are they a pain. And the reason why they're a pain is they look after their constituents. So they looked at our product and you know what? It has to be so incredibly compliant, way more compliant than I'd ever be standalone company. But because they're our partner, this is the most compliant platform I've ever built. That's good for an agent. And it's all free because of car, because they're looking out. So yes, time, Jeff, you're not going to miss box. You're not going to miss. how it was the vesting is on the deed because we do that for you, right? AI is one of these things where it gives you eight arms. Use them.

• Speaker #1

  And is it's Ethica VoicePilot. Is it just right now in California?

• Speaker #0

  Just in California. So we kicked off with the California Association of Realtors. They came to us and basically said, why aren't you doing this and why aren't we doing this together? So we said, let's do it. And so not to be biased, but we started in California. It's the largest state. CAR is the largest association of the states. And they jumped on first. And so it's in California now. We will be in 50 states.

• Speaker #1

  Is there any timeline that you have right now?

• Speaker #0

  It all depends on when you talk to me.

• Speaker #1

  And this is a full disclosure. This will drop in late July.

• Speaker #0

  News flash, it dropped yesterday. So hold on. It'll be out for every realtor in California beginning of July. AI is making us work faster, so it's okay. And agents are yelling for it. Time frame, I don't know. So here's what I'll say, going back to what keeps me up at night. When someone said you need to build this, we thought it would take six months. Then it took three months. And it took two months. AI is getting better. I thought I needed 100 people. I need 10, right? Codex keeps getting faster, better. I have now people that used to do customer experience. Now we're building code, building product. So, you know, to answer your question, I don't know timelines anymore. They are literally a figment of my imagination. Every time I think I know something, AI or Claude says, nah, you know, mythos comes out. And then gets pulled back. Like, I don't know. Jeff, this world is. incredibly amazing, scary, and wonderful.

• Speaker #1

  It's, it's wild with, with Claude. I see it all the time when I'm building projects out all the time, it'll say, well, this is going to take an hour. It takes five minutes. Yes. Even Claude doesn't know how good it is. Yep. You know, and yeah, with mythos, the mythos architecture with fable, which I've heard now it's coming back pretty soon. Praise, praise AI Jesus.

• Speaker #0

  Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Cause that's a game changer for anyone that doesn't know like, Oh my God. Yep. And, It's just the time you get so much more stuff done.

• Speaker #0

  And you know what? I'm just going to cut you off for a sec. You said something. My entire theory right now is if I could build something, not just filling out forms for agents, but be their assistant from soup to nuts, that's my goal, right? Let them sell. Let them be my best friend. but let AI do everything else. And so I truly believe that, again, I just happened to pick real estate because real estate has been so good to me and realtors built my homes, right? Realtors have been so good to me. Why not give back? But in any profession, AIs can become your personal assistant. Like you just said, I'm sitting here for an hour with you. My codex is looking at everything for me. And it's going to buzz and tell me what to do. It's giving me back my hour. I can sit with Katie at dinner and not look at my phone. Not because she tells me not to, because I know it's being taken care of. Doesn't anyone deserve that?

• Speaker #1

  It is the efficiency.

• Speaker #0

  It's peace of mind,

• Speaker #1

  too. It's peace of mind.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  That to hop on a Google Meet call, and the whole thing's being recorded, and you take that transcript, and you drop it in a project folder in the cloud. and knows exactly what it's doing, and it takes all the takeaways, and then it emails out to people for follow-ups.

• Speaker #0

  You and I couldn't work together without AI.

• Speaker #1

  Correct.

• Speaker #0

  What you do for me as a one-person team is amazing because you're leaning on AI more than most, right? Efficient for me, cost-effective for me, and amazing for you, right? And so, again, I'm going to sound like a broken record. Whether it's a... funny mistake or just a windfall for me and for real estate agents, I happen to want to give back to an industry that gave me a ton. And I also have an ax to grind of all the other technology companies that want to give up on real estate agents. So it's a happy mistake, right? And I happen to meet a guy that all he wants to do is build product through AI, right? And so here it is. It's free. I don't understand how else to do it. Right? The only barrier is someone's got to pick it up and use it.

• Speaker #1

  Well, there's no catch.

• Speaker #0

  There's no catch.

• Speaker #1

  And people, I think especially realtors are, you know.

• Speaker #0

  You know who has the, okay. Real estate agents have the worst PR. And you know who else has the worst PR? AI. So I happen to be working on two sectors that have really bad PR. It's true. Everyone's afraid of AI. Their PR. in AI is so bad and real estate agents, sorry, have the worst PR and they are the best out there. It's just funny to me. So why not have two negatives? Because you know what that equals?

• Speaker #1

  A big positive. Big positive. And when you said that about AI, that's right. Because now it's anybody, anyone who's a keynote speaker at a college graduation, if they bring up AI.

• Speaker #0

  Boo.

• Speaker #1

  Boo. Boo AI. Like, whoa, wait a minute. Yep. Do you know what it's going to do? Unless you're an archaeology major, you know what it's going to do for you? No

• Speaker #0

  yep like it's gonna you're gonna be able your bandwidth is gonna increase you know you know jeff you know there's two there's two really funny things people boo ai but you're able to be in a plane because of ai and have for many years autopilot do you think that is right like those of us that are in cars now that self-drive what do you think that is your phone is filled with ai Okay. How do you, how does it know who's calling you? Like, it's just one of those things where if it affects you in a bad way, like life, it's not good. Affects you in a good way. It's brilliant. It's all how you use it. It's why I use it.

• Speaker #1

  Do you think that there's other applications outside of real estate for Ethica?

• Speaker #0

  No, it's interesting. I haven't thought about that. I think you know me well enough. I am pretty myopic and I'm singular focused. Probably all I care about is I have 225,000 real estates in California. If I can get each one of them once just to utilize this technology, it's a win. I'm just trying to build the best product for real estate agents right now. That's it. So is there application? Maybe. I don't know.

• Speaker #1

  It's interesting because you're someone that you invest in people. You also always root for the underdog.

• Speaker #0

  Let me think about that. Let me keep myself grounded. I don't know if I agree with that.

• Speaker #1

  Really?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I'll tell you why. I don't root for the underdog. I root for the person I know that can do it, and no one's giving them a chance. I think there's a difference there.

• Speaker #1

  Fair enough.

• Speaker #0

  I think there's a difference. Like going back to what we first talked about, I saw something in you, not because you're the underdog. It's because you're really good at what you did. And so I'm going to invest in that. Going back to a real estate agent, I don't think they're the underdog. I just don't think anyone's invested the way they should in that industry. I'm seeing why. It's very difficult for them to pick up something new. And I will not give up on that. I see something. They're not underdogs. The biggest association in the country. They've just been underserved. They've been underserved. And I know people and I'm giving that to the agent.

• Speaker #1

  Well said, my friend.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you. I mean, it's true.

• Speaker #1

  This has been fun. It's been fun. Of course, it's always fun. It's been fun.

• Speaker #0

  Always fun with you.

• Speaker #1

  This is something that was a long time coming. I want to thank you for coming in.

• Speaker #0

  Thanks for having me. This is awesome. You know I love you.

• Speaker #1

  Same. Same. always and we will do this again very soon thanks buddy asshole