June 3, 2025 • 55 mins
In part two of this candid roundtable, The Wealth Break hosts Rodney and Travis reconnect with Marlon Nichols and Eric Taylor to talk risk, responsibility, and who really gets to build generational wealth. From family pressure to financial setbacks, they explore how race, privilege, and policy shape the entrepreneurship journey—and why taking the leap isn’t an option for everyone.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Rodney Williams, co founder of The Wealth Break.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
I know firsthand that building wealth can feel like everyone's
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we created The Wealth Break. It's way more than a podcast.
(00:24):
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(00:46):
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Speaker 1 (00:54):
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Speaker 3 (00:57):
Visit the wealthbreak dot com today and start changing the
game for yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Welcome to the Wealth Break.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
This is where we unlock stories of financial success, pushing,
breaking down odds, being yourself, and ending it in a
way which we hope closes the wealth gap.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Welcome to the Wealth Break.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We're continuing our conversation about building wealth in twenty twenty five.
This is Part two of our Powerhouse segment with Marlon
Nichols and Eric Taylor. If you missed the first part one,
I mean we dove through everything, everything that you could
think about in terms of AI or what was going
(02:00):
on in the current marketplace. I think today we're going
to talk a little bit more about strategies, but most importantly,
we're here with two folks that we admire and respect,
and they have built a living on understanding the market,
understanding market uncertainty, but also making great decisions.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So are you guys ready for this episode.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Let's do a quick little introduction because you could have
tuned into part two and not part one. Our first
guest is someone who's made serious moves in venture capital,
Marlon Nichols. He's the founding managing partner at mac Venture Capital,
where he invests in game changing companies. Before that, he
was at Intel Capital, where he launched one hundred and
twenty five million dollar diversity fund. Marlin's got an ie
(02:43):
for emerging markets and has back brands like Gimlet Media
and Pipe. And before all of that, he was a
Jamaican dance hall singer.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Welcome, ever, man, I wish these intros gave people what
they want to hear right, Marlin runs the largest seed
fun in l How much do you manage.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
About six hundred million, six hundred million dollars?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Listen to him?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Six hundred million dollar fine Angel Investors. One of the
the vcs that actually is not delusional. And what I
mean by that is the vcs historically are so unrelatable
and you just don't see yourself in them, so it's
very difficult to be authentic with them. I think Marlon
represents someone who isn't that, even though his resume is
(03:30):
kind of delusional and you don't relate to it if
you know it. But you know, most founders are not that.
Marlon Nichols, thank you for being here, Thanks for having
me so. Our second guest is Eric Taylor. Eric Tayler
has an incredible technology based PE firm that is doing
groundbaking things across the United States. One of the things
(03:53):
that I would use to describe Eric is how a
very seasoned finance leader.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
He said.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Eric's bold, he's arrogant, he's aggressive, but he's well talented.
Most people would fear that. I don't, and it's an
absolute pleasure. That's why we're friends to be here. That's
why welcome guys. Let's get it awesome. Good to see y'all.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Man. So I got some questions for y'all.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
I think the first one, which we didn't really dive into,
you guys having finance backgrounds, working in finance, people feel
like you've always been perfect, right, Like you didn't make
financial mistakes and had to learn some things by making
those mistakes, right. Would love to kind of know, like,
what are some of the things that you had to
(04:41):
endure in order to kind of get to this point?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Dude.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I couldn't get a credit card for like the first
five years after college. Why So my freshman year of college,
I go to Bank of America. I signed up for
a checking account and they say, do you want overdraft
something or another? And I'm like, I don't really know
what that is, but I'm like sure, and he's like, well,
it's a credit card. It has to you account. I'm like, no, no,
(05:04):
my dad said no credit cards. I don't do credit cards.
He's like, you can just cut it up if you want,
you don't have to use it. It's free. I'm like, fine,
whatever credit card comes in the mail, debit card comes
to the mail, I take the debit card. I literally
cut up the credit card, throw it in the trash.
I then proceed to spend on that debit card like
a drunken salor. I'm not checking nothing, And I get
(05:25):
a message from you know, Bank of America like three
to six months later, like you owe us a thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
You owe us all this money.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And I don't know how, but I didn't connect the
dots between the money that was in my account and
then about that I was spending right, a very basic
fundamental problem.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
So he was using a debit card like a credit
I was.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Using a debit card like a credit card.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Something BAA was after me, like I mean, and for
those who have messed up their credit, you know, it
takes a long time to get off your credit. One
of the ways, f Y, if you're in this situation,
one of the ways you have to do that is
you apply for a special kind of credit card. And
this is this is the ship's embarrassing. You have to
put a thousand or secure one hundred dollars or your
(06:09):
own money in a bank account, and then you borrow
against your own money.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
To prove that credit.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
You know what you're doing, and so I had to
do that literally for like three or four years before
my credit was in a place where anybody would do
anything with me. If you think about it, I was
at Goldman Sachs, like making real bread, and I could
not get a credit card. I could absolutely I was
building financial model.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I was. I mean hundreds of millions of dollars. Could not.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
I don't know how you got hired. Like they do
the background check, and they should have saw that credit.
They should have, which is like that can't be a
red flag. Absolutely should be ala.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
If you're if you're in it.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Maybe not if you're but if you're in wealth management
or any thing that you have to be like job.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
But it would also be funny though, because if they
pulled the credit report, it would have a low score
and it would say one thousand dollars a debt.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, but they're not about to pay him, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
What I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
But it's still your credibility though, right, And like if
you're going to be a fiduciary of someone else's money
and you're that bad with your own, like no one
wants that problem, and it's problematic. I remember going to
the mail room and when I use the work in finance,
and like seeing people's credit reports come off the fax
machine before somebody statched it, like it's a real thing
they do check.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And by the way, it's our only job, Like my
only job is to be good and responsible with money.
Nobody cares about anything else. It's it's the only thing
that I'm hired to do, be good in response with money.
If you lose one of those two things, my mind,
I mean, it's a line out the door.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
One hundred percent. What about you, Marlin is yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
Mine was a little bit later. So this was when
I when I left Intel Capital. And it's really around
just like scenario plan in creating a cushion. A lot
of people don't think about how much money you need
to save put aside before you jump into entrepreneurship. And
(08:13):
also so my plan was, you know, I was building
this fund with my first co founder, and I was
building it while still working at Intel Capital. There's an
inherent conflict of interest there, but one that I thought
I navigated right because I told everyone all the powers
that needed to be that I was doing this thing,
(08:35):
let me rock right, and they said, okay, just don't
let it interfere with what we're doing here, and I
was like, absolutely not. The investment thesis is completely different.
I'm not taking any time away from like my workday,
none of that. So so I was doing that. We
got to our first close. My co found at the
time was fairly famous. So someone picked it up and
(08:56):
wrote I think and I think it was axios to
one of those is that these two were starting a
fund and they've had a first close and they're out investing.
And someone, someone at the firm saw it and ran upstairs,
let me r let me wrong, gotell. And the thing is,
we had a we had a president change at the
(09:18):
at Intel Capital between when that was happening, and a
new dude was like, hell, no, you can't. You can't
be here and do that. So you got a decision
to make either you're going to stay here and stop
doing that, or are you going to go? And I
had literally hours to decide. I'm in the workday, not
(09:38):
expecting this, hours to decide, and I'm like, I started,
I'm doing this for a reason, So I guess I'm
out right. And so then came the mess right because
now we didn't we hadn't raised enough money to support
my salary right. So so it.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Was like, all right, well, what am I going to
do now?
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Right? So I'm looking at all, right, can I borrow against
my four one K, which I only had because it's
something that you automatically get when you get hired. At Intel,
I had what do you call it, restricted stock units,
so I started selling those as fast as I could. Fortunately,
my business partner was wealthy, so he didn't have to
(10:21):
take a salary from the fund. So I was able
to take a very small salary from the fund. But then,
I mean I was on a struggle bus for like
four or five years because our first phone was only
like fifteen million, right, and if you do the math,
you get your fees are two percent of that per year.
It's nothing, right, And so I was running out of money,
(10:43):
getting broke real quick. Living in the Bay Area at
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I mean you might spend that on travel now.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Living in the Bay Area like the most expensive place
to live in the country. That's part of what my
move to to l A. As I just needed something
a little bit less expensive while while I was going
through this. But yeah, but the takeaway is like put
more away, right, like you know, just because you're making
it doesn't mean you need to be spending it at
(11:15):
an equivalent clip.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, we talked a lot about like living below your
means and we can use that for the code switch.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, we're talking about living below or at your means
to build.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well, what is your stance.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Oh, I'm very pro it. If I if I'm giving
advice one percent, you should do it as I do.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, I do as I say that as I do.
So you're saying people should live below that means why
don't you?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
The reason I don't is not a good reason. But
but I'll tell you the reason. I've always had plan
A in my mind. You know, when I when I
was a kid, the some of the similar moments that
I remember. I had the best parents in the world,
but I remember them fighting over money. That was a
(12:05):
key part of my insecurity as a kid growing up.
I remember my family being unstable because of money. Long
story short, you can sort of trace my path from
you know, prep school at Eaglebrook, then Exeter, than Harvard,
than Goldman, then starting my own fund. I always had
a plan A from the time I was a kid.
I'm going to make a lot of money. Because if
(12:26):
I make a lot of money, then I got no
family issues. That's my six year old brain, you know,
that's what That's what my six year old self told me.
You know, you can ask people. When I was like
a freshman or sophomore in college, like interning on Wall Street,
I would tell people like, Oh, I'm going to start
an asset management firm and be a billionaire. And I'm
like eighteen nineteen years old. You know, I don't even
know where the bathroom is. But I was very convicted
(12:48):
in that. So the unmitigated gall of that statement I recognize, obviously,
But I've always had that plan a. I've been very
very secure in that, and so it just never made
sense for me personally to live below my means because
I was like, oh, I'm always going to make more money.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Not a big deal.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Now, just to be clear, that's terrible advice. Do not
do that because you will, you know you can and
will get caught off side.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But I have spent you.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Know, I did spend a you know, I did spend
a long time doing that. And I went through a
similar situation, you know, as you where I started a
business and severely underestimated how challenging it would be. Underestimated
how long it would take, underestimated how expensive it would be,
and I don't have a four O one K today.
Like all that ish got cleared out. You know, I
(13:38):
took major tax hits on, you know, on all of
it just to sort of make end me to just
kind of put you.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Know, oh back taxes for like three years. Oh yeah,
that's crazy. I did not want to go back to
that point.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
So it sounds like Eric, you kind of use living
at your means, not below your means, as almost like
a motivation to just go get more correct.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
I actually think more often than not, the cautionary tales
that you see are neither below or at it's above, right,
So when people say live below your means, I think
that's good advice. But you know, you could probably get
by if you're only saving a little bit and just
you know, living really really well. But ultimately it's just
(14:24):
going to be about your goals. I mean, you need
to figure out if you're in a situation where you're
building equity or not. I've always been in a situation
where I was building equity. So if you were to
take my future net worth or whatever, I think my
future net worth will be and discount it back to
today and amortize that. That basically means chop up, chop
it up, as if it's evenly distributed through the years.
(14:47):
In my mind, I'm like, even if I spend all
this cash, I'm still up. I'm still making money.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Obviously I have to get to that future value in
order for that to be true. But that was the
mentality that I had in mind. And again, the utter
arrogance of that statement is not is not unbeknownst to me,
but but you know that's that was my mindset.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It's like, if you if your ambition and aspiration can
go in the ring, you probably should do that, right
because what you ultimately also saying is that today is
below my means, even though it's the max of my
current correct correct but today is below.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
My me below my future mean. It is below my
future means.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
The way I think about it is what some of
these older billionaires wouldn't give to have stunted when they
were twenty five.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, so you're fifty or fifty.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Five years old, you're in Monaco on your yacht doing
all the things that you wish you would have done.
What they wouldn't give to be twenty five and doing that,
and I never wanted to have that feeling. That was
really important to me. Now again, I'm not giving advice.
I'm just telling you what I did.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, interesting thing, whether we knew how we did it
or not. I feel good about what I did. I
feel great, feel fantastic, felt I feel great.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't know how it all. I feel great.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
But I think it's because we've all still continued to
be relentless in the pursuit of the equity, you know,
building right.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
It's you can sit here today and still feel good.
Speaker 7 (16:21):
About what you did wrong because you feel good about
where you're at and where you're headed. I think that
that's probably like the biggest thing is you don't feel
like you really lost anything.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
You just feel like you've gained a lot.
Speaker 7 (16:34):
You might not have experienced it all yet to your pockets,
but like you know that it's there.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And I'm going to say this a little bit differently.
If you are working in a salary job and you
make one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, we are not
saying go over spend.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Go act like you make three hundred, No, but we
are saying, if you're an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
If you're a business or you're aspiring to do more
and right now it's a little rough, you can probably push.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It or don't be or don't don't be hard on yourself.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
Yet we all go through that period, you know, And
I think that's the most important thing, right, Like, that's
that's what I was kind of getting at. Is like
when you have certain titles and you work in certain industries,
people just feel like you do do it by the book,
and everybody doesn't do it by the book and everyone
everyone isn't over prepared and doesn't always plan.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
You talk about plan A.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
I talk about that all the time, that there is
no plan B for me, Like my eggs are in
this basket because I'm building this business, Like that's so
important to me. But I do think you know, to
go to the responsible side, like as you have a
family and you have people who depend on you, like
it is important to make sure that you don't put
them in circumstances that are you know, unhealthy and unsavory.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But you know, to start my family late, yeah, yeah, right,
I waited until I was in a place where I
could actually be comfortable around around that likewise, and that
was very intentional.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, I've always said that it was a competitive advantage.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
My time capacity just got more time.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah, I just don't have to do many other things
because I don't have the family part At some point
in time, you got to choose differently. But it is
a competitive advantage if time is I think time is
like inconsistency on projects.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's actually like the biggest accelerator or cheat.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Code in my opinion, because I feel like I'm gonna
time you out of it, like I'm gonna wear you
down eventually.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But if you don't have time for that, it's hard.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
I think that depends on your partner too, though. Right,
if you have the right partner and you have a family,
you could go toe to toe with somebody that is,
you know, one hundred single and in the field, right
because because you got coverage, you have a partner.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It might even be better because more motivated exactly.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, it's just harder to control somebody else, harder to
attract that.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
It's got to be a right situation.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Got to be the right situation, I think. Yeah, I
don't think it's hard to attract it. Yeah, if you're
doing what you're supposed to be doing now. It's got
to be usually to be clear about.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
Looking for I don't think it's hard to attract it.
I think it's right to discern whether or not it's
right or not. And I think there are people that
you might think are offering that, but they're not.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, I think my biggest challenge we're looking for that partner,
it's the realistic reality of what it takes to be
an entrepreneur and them understanding my level of commitment and
how I'm much I'm willing to sacrifice. It's always uncomfortable.
(19:33):
So that's the part. It's not that they you know,
you're right. I may contracted, you know, I set them up,
but like sometimes I you know, being an or attracted,
not contracted, contracted, no attracted?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
IoT, what's going on? Yeah, I feel like it.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Looks good on the billboard, but when you when you
go to the party, the party is a tough party.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I mean, I think it's true for whomever your partner
may be.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
But I think it's also important that people realize that
we make real big sacrifices every day too, right like
time away, time on planes, time in the hotels, missing
family events, you spend a you make really major sacrifices
every day and write and whomever is with you is
(20:24):
also making significant sacrifices, sacrificing time. And I think that
is an inhibitor to people taking risk and being relentless
in pursuit of their dreams. Because when someone's calling, who
doesn't understand to your point, who doesn't understand that he
needs to do this, He needs to be away, He
needs to stay at the office, like he needs to
(20:44):
be on this trip that you think is vacation just
because of the destination, but it's actually still work.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You know.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Those are some of the challenges that I think people
don't realize.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
He need to be able to do with no audience
because like nobody cares, Like I don't care that you
are a flight last week, I don't care that you
work hard, you know.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
And people are inherently self interested. Nobody else cares. But well,
I'll take what you just said to another like level.
You know, I'm Caribbean, and I think most first generation
American citizens that come from the Caribbean. In addition to
a family that you might have like your your immediate family,
(21:26):
you have your extended family. You're probably got cousins. If
you have siblings. If you your parents, you end up
having to think about what's going to happen to them
if you run out of money, because you're probably you're
probably carrying them to some degree, right, And and so
(21:48):
when you think about entrepreneurship and being able to make
that sacrifice, you know, for for for someone that looks
like whose background looks like mine, it's not I'm not
just thinking. I can't just think about what's gonna happen
to me. I got to think about what's all these
other people right that are are kind of dependent on
(22:10):
this thing going right or wrong.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
So you've definitely clearly taken risk in your career, But
do you feel like you would have taken more risk
if you didn't feel like you had that I'm not
going to call it a burden, but if you didn't
feel like you had that responsibility, would you take more
risk than you took or would you take It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Say, right?
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Did you ever feel like it held you back from
being able to take a risk?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, because because like you think, Okay, I got this
opportunity in front of me, may or may not pan out.
You know, I got to take this major pay cut, right,
now for a little bit. What's going to happen when
I take that pay cut and somebody needs this from me,
I can't really do that well.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
I mean, it's the same thing in terms of the
way I was, you know, sort of living, spending every
dollar that came in. I really felt like, Hey, if
it all burns down, I still have me, you know,
I like, yeah, I can still go out here and
make money. I can still reset because I'm not responsible
(23:09):
for anybody.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Now, I will shout out.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
I grew up with parents who both had master's agreed.
My dad's a doctor, my mom's a lawyer, and so
they they're really responsible for giving me that comfort that
allowed me to take these risks. I'd like to think
that I've completed the task, certainly to their satisfaction but
(23:34):
also my own. But but it's hard to you know,
it's hard to do that without that backing and that
solid foundation starting, which is why you know, families and
setting it up for this next generation.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I know we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Is so important because your kid can't take that risk
unless they know that all they got to worry about
is their own.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Skin, or they or they have a nest to contact you. Right,
if you lose everything, you don't want to be out
on the street. If you if you can go back
to you know, the mom and dads, then you know
that gives you more more courage if you would.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
I mean, that's why people drop out of like Stanford
and Harvard and start companies.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's like, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Right, Like, I don't I don't have a mom on
dialysis that I'm good exactly, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I Mean, that's the freedom that I talk about. I
think that's the that's what I aspire to have, and
I think that's what you know, you guys probably aspire
to give your kids and your family members, is the
freedom to do the things they want to do, when
they want to do it, and not have to think
about the consequences as it relates to changing the lifestyle. Yeah,
(24:44):
because that's what I just that's what you know, That's
what always I'm always like, I may not be able
to do that, that's too risky because it might wipe
me out. Versus I want to I want to sometimes,
I want to be asked free to be as I
want to be. I want to do some I'm like
it'll wipe it out, but somebody will catch me because
(25:05):
but you know, nobody's gonna catch you problem and you
know they're looking to be caught.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I got to catch you, got to catch them.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
So so that that's that's the challenge. So I want
(25:33):
to talk about a little bit about the economy, just
giving your backgrounds. One, how do you feel about the
current environment? Tariffs, cost of living is high? Interest rates
just remained flat. What what do you think is going
to happen? Do you think that these terroriffts are going
to get rolled back?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Marlin? Do you think that they're gonna they're here to stay?
What do you what do you think?
Speaker 6 (25:54):
So? I mean, I'm just I'm just going about my business,
mine and my business right right now.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's it's don't like to take stance, it's it's uh.
Speaker 6 (26:07):
It's an incredible environment that we're in right now. Where
on a daily basis, if you thought something was red,
now it's blue. You thought something was up, now it's down,
and then tomorrow is back up again. Publications are are
having a time right now because the current administration is
in office because they got stuff to talk about. It's
(26:29):
not it's not boring. The negative part of all this
is that the American people who are going to suffer
as a result of this. Right, you mentioned tariffs. Well,
first of all, the economy. Economy is not great right now.
Stock market is not doing well. We had maybe a
week where there was like a glim a glimmer of hope,
(26:52):
but that's now gone. Unemployment is at an all time high,
like people don't have jobs, can't get jobs, and then
people are getting fired for no reason from their jobs
if they work for the government. So there's just a
lot going on that's not good. And the tariffs are
also not good. This president I think I've read somewhere
(27:15):
that he has the lowest rating all time for this
this period of time in office ever, and it's it's
related to to all this stuff. But the tariffs, you know,
they're in place, and I think a lot of American
businesses are going to start to feel the pain from that.
(27:39):
I think also American consumers are going to feel the
pain from that, which means that ratings, his ratings are
going to approval ratings are going to go even further down,
and the folks with money that back this administration are
going to start to get upset and they're going to
start to make noise, and I don't think he's gonna
(28:01):
have a choice but to reverse them. The other thing, too,
is like, for some reason, I guess the administration felt like,
you're just gonna, you know, bully other countries that we
actually depend on for a lot, and they're like, we're not.
We're not gonna have that. So now we've got counter towers,
(28:22):
which is also another reason why folks are gonna feel
a lot of a lot of pain. And I do
think it's gonna ultimately going to be rolled back. It's
just not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Eric, what do you think? You got a different perspective.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I'd maybe just start by contextualizing what I think the
administration is trying to do. Whenever I see things that
don't necessarily make sense to me, but I see people
who are obviously very talented around those things, I try to,
you know, like run a red team analysis very okay,
Well what are they thinking? And you know, like I
(28:55):
read JD Vance's Hillbillyology, I know that a lot of
the base that got this administration into office feels very
left behind. And so here's what I suspect is happening
in the like sixties, seventies and eighties, there was a
very clear effort to do two big things right, lower tariffs,
(29:17):
to open up the American economy, and do things to
make sure that the dollar was the base currency for
the world. And those two things I think we all
knew would make for you know, deeper and wider and
better financial markets. It would create tons of opportunity. We'd
have the best schools, we have the best and brightest
people coming, and you'd have your record highs in the
(29:39):
stock market.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
The housing market would blow up. I mean, all these
great things.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
But the other aspect of it is that the jobs
were going to get sent overseas. So like this whole
like you know, this whole like jobs are getting sent overseas,
people being surprised, as ridiculous, like we knew that the
jobs were going to go. The idea was that the
people who had those jobs were supposed to upscill So
if you were a coal miner, you should be upskilling
(30:05):
to a coal mine engineer, right whatever it is. That
was like sort of the missing middle where people didn't
upskill and you had no catch up in mid and waight.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
So the mini wa doesn't change what since O eight
oh nine. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
So wealth is the wealth gap is increasing. It might
have slowed down a little bit, but like it's still increasing.
And I think all the goals that our economic leaders
had in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, they I think happened,
except you left this massive group of people behind who
did not upscale. Who's at fault everybody, right, I mean,
(30:42):
the schools are at fault for not teaching them to upscale.
They're at fault for not trying to upscale, the governments
at fault for not giving them the tools whatever. And
so I think Trump is trying to reverse a lot
of that. Right, This is like the post World War
two economic environment that the United States is in. Trump
is trying to turn that all around. And I think
(31:04):
it means turning our back on a lot of alliances.
I think it means that the United States is not
going to be the sort of center for world peace.
I think it means that if you are dying of
tuberculosis in you know, a third world country, like you're
dying of tuberculos in a third world country, like we're not.
You know, you used to be like you know, you
(31:25):
might have American care package coming, you know, I think, now, look,
you're on your own good luck, and I can see
both sides of it. I think that the manner in
which it's being done is a little bit scary. But
I do think that whether it's you know, Scott has said,
Howard Lutnik, you know, Donald Trump, Mark Rubio like, I
(31:47):
think all these people have been very very clear about
what they're doing, and I don't think anybody should be
really confused. Now there's a question of you know, what
do you do to make money in this economy, in
this environment. That's you know, that's a separate conversation, but
that's what I think is happening. When I look at
the tariffs, I think I see them as here to stay.
I don't see why, you know, I don't think these
(32:09):
are negotiating tactics.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I don't think he's playing around.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
I think he's actually upending the post World War II
economic sort of worldwide economic setting that we've all grown
so used to. He's turning it on its head so
that the people who've been left behind can start to
catch up.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
To some extent, there's a misconception though that I think
a lot of is taught in certain communities is that
it's not a strategy, it's not by design, it's not deliberate,
it's a radic it's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Meaning it's not rhyme to the reason.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And whether I agree or disagree, what I do believe
is that it's one hundred percent by design. Everything is
right now in play for a certain agenda. And the
best thing that we can do is try to figure
out if we agree or we like it, or what
that agenda would look like. And it's going to get
uncomfortable and rough in the middle. And I don't even
say we're in the middle of it. So how do
(33:04):
you guys feel about where the people are headed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Though? Right?
Speaker 7 (33:08):
So, like if tariffs are here to stay, let's just
assume they're here to stay.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right.
Speaker 7 (33:15):
Costs continue to rise. We know unemployment is high. We
know that costs of living through the roof. We have
people who are literally using buy now, pay later for
door dash now right, the fifteen dollars Chipotle bowl comes, right,
you know, the twenty dollars McDonald's, because it's not a
(33:36):
dollar minue anymore, gets to your door and you're literally
spreading that out over for payments.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
That's why Klarina just file for appeal. This is this
is the perfect environment for company.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
But I just want to be really really clear, like
I'm sorry, but one thing though is people aren't going
to upscale, right.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
It's not like a bunch of these individuals are all
going to be AI engineers all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
That's not going to happen. The jobs that are going
are not coming back.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
So we know that that's a force, right, Like, Hey,
I'm going to go to Michigan and say that I'm
going to bring the auto industry back, and I'm going
to go to West Virginia and say that I'm going
to bring coal mining back.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
We know that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 7 (34:14):
But those same people have now kind of aged into
a point where they're like retirement age because they are
a bunch of boomers. But then the younger generations that
are in locations like that, they're not going to upscale.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
So like what happens, You're fucked. I mean, I want
to be very clear. The solution in this country to
going from being poor or working class has been the same,
and that's not changing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
What is that solution?
Speaker 5 (34:45):
It's a capitalist economy, get capital and build equity.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's the only way to do it. That's the only
way I know how to do it. Now.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
If you are in medical school right now and you're
planning to be a doctor, don't listen to my advice.
You've probably done more school than I have, so whatever.
But for everybody else right who is not doing like
an advanced degree going into doctor Laura engineer, who probably
doesn't listen to this podcast anyways, who's trying to figure
out how to build wealth, create equity value for yourself.
(35:17):
And you can do that with a business. It could
be a lemonade stand. You could do that with a home.
You could do that by buying homes and renting them whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
You could do that by investing in markets reliably and
over time. But we live in an economy that rewards
you becoming a professional, a pro in building equity and
building capital.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
So irrespective of whether or not Klarna's charging interest on
Chipotle burritos or what's going on with tariffs like that,
stuff shouldn't really matter to you if you're trying, if
you're in the intro stages of trying to build wealth,
because it's not going to stop you from building wealth.
These are just details now when you have money, these
are things that you should be thinking about. But you know,
(36:03):
again like if if you've got more money than me,
I don't know why you listen to me on a
wealth podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Anyways.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Yeah, you know, the part of this that we're not
talking about too is the attack on non white people.
There have been lots of things built into the laws
that govern how things are done in this country over many,
(36:32):
many years that don't allow or didn't allow certain groups
the ability to get capital so they can build equity
and it. You know, I'm I don't know four hundred
percent or any percent, but it sure seems like we're
(36:55):
trying to go back to a place where certain groups
are not afforded the liberty.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Can you name one thing, because obviously I disagree, But
can you name one disagree? I disagree that anything has
been rolled back that helped systematically.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
Affirmative action is the number one, i'd say, economic tool
to put many women in business and help them to
create wealth. That's definitely has been rolled back.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
There should have been so much more of an uprising
about affirmative action rollback then there has been about DEI rollbacks,
And I'm not saying that DII doesn't matter, but affirmative
action was so much more impactful to getting people behind
the door versus knocking on the door than DEI ever was.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
My only problem is that once a Supreme Court case,
one's the administration man.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Since the point of measuring the wealth gap, it's only
accelerated in the past couple of years, since twenty seventeen
has accelerated more than it's ever had in the history
of tracking it. So I just want to be very
clear that a lot of these programs were not effective
at doing it in a an a scalable way. What
program you're talking about, deffermative action, affirmative action, I'm just
(38:18):
talking about from a wealth I'm listen, I'm talking about
from a wealth gap of considering by.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Ethnicity or sex.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
That the gap has gotten larger, so the income of
them have increased. But what happens is that group continues
to outpace this group. So this group that is, you know,
growing their wealth by twenty percent, thirty percent every year,
this bottom group flat.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
So just to be clear, are you saying I just
want to make sure yeah, what you're saying, are you
saying that the wealth gap has gotten wider because that's
one thing. Or are you saying that we have less
wealthy people from certain demographics than we did prior to
affirmative action.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I'm just saying it's two different things. I'm just saying
that the wealth gap is large.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
Well, that's different.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
It is.
Speaker 6 (39:14):
It is, and I'm not it's not, And you can't
directly attach that to affirmative action.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I don't disagree.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
But what I am saying, though, is that that is
a data point that's important, is that despite the improvements
and people of color or of sex in higher education
and better jobs and better roles and better quote unquote lifestyle,
their wealth hasn't disapportionately changed in reference to the other groups.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
And that's what that's because they're not building wealth, right,
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And and that's all. That's all I'm getting.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And I think it's also because the systematic things that
separate those two are still difficult to create. Equity, getting
licenses of businesses, owning businesses, get eating loans for homes.
They're still just they're actually more difficult today than they were.
It's just really different, Like no one that looks like
(40:10):
us can go out and start a bank as an example,
it's like less black banks today, there's less black businesses
that actually of certain value. There's a lot of black businesses,
but of certain value is actually less today. It's less
black media companies, it's less women owned media companies.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The truth when you start to Parson.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
You are speaking, you're speaking against your point.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
No, but I'm just not trying to say is that
I think it's So what my point is in a conclusion,
is that I think the system that needs to be
addressed is like the structural system, the bureaucracy around creating
businesses and owning businesses for all people, because that is
what I think.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Builds real wealth. And that system is still very very prejudiced.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
So to be clear, though, like affirmative action didn't say
just because you're black you get this thing, right, you
still have to have have qualifications, and in most cases
those qualifications had to far exceed your white counterparts.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Right, So so we're not we're not talking about here's
a hand meet handing. I'm not giving you anything, right,
I'm allowing you the opportunity to participate in this game.
You can play in the game. You still got to win.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, just about this game is not about a well game.
Speaker 7 (41:26):
But two things though, Like affirmative action also was like
the challenge was you're trying to get into You're trying
to get this job. You're trying to get into an institution,
and you have the same qualifications or even higher qualifications
and your non counterpart and they're still getting the nod
and you're not getting the nod. Like affirmative action was
to make sure that someone who had at part or
(41:46):
better qualifications or background could actually make it there. I
think that from a business sense, if you can't get
the job at the law firm, you can't get the
job at the marketing agency. If you can't get the job,
that means you can't get the income in order to
start to build equity, because every person's not going to
be a business owner, right and every person shouldn't be
(42:08):
a business owner. But if you can't get the job
to then start to invest in the markets as an example,
or start to earn the salary to allow you to
get the.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Say you can't work for yourself, you can't salary yourself
to wealth.
Speaker 7 (42:20):
I don't think you can salary yourself to wealth, but
you have to get the salary first to start right,
So like you got to get the salary in order
to get the down payment so you can get the
rental property or to get the home to start building
the equity. So if people aren't able to get in
the door because affirmative action doesn't exist and they're no
longer getting the nod, they're qualified to be there, but
(42:42):
they can't be there, then you're creating this really big
challenge where you have all of these people who will
never be on the path to building.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Well. I just think there's illusion.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yes, I think the illusion is that we have taught
so many people that getting the job is building. Well,
we were taught getting I was supposed to get the
job at PNG and work there for twenty five years.
This concept of leaving when I had the opportunity to
leave was like, you're crazy.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
What are you doing.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
You're supposed to do with my dad did, which was
work there, get pension. And what I'm trying to tell
you is that ideology or that narrative was not a
wealth building narrative. That was a stay in place, be
a worker in narrative.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
But the generation before us didn't know any better.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
But that's why this is I remember my grandmother when
she was asking about my job at Golden Sachs. The
first thing she asked me she said, did they give
good benefits? Think about how crazy of a question that is, right, Like,
I'm taking this job because I'm like, well, I want
(43:45):
to start my own fund at some point, I want
to raise billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I want to do this. And she's like, how's there dental?
Speaker 7 (43:51):
Yeah, that was the goal because she thinks he's going
to work there, so you're sixty five.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
I mean that, like quite literally, that was that was
the idea, right, So the context wasn't even there to
help guide you know, our generation of so many of
these cases.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
But but you know, only in our community is that taught?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Like that like when you when you talk to something truth,
I just think it over indexes in certain communities like yeah,
because there's certain other communities like they're like, I think
it owns something by something. Let's let's pull together and
open up a little store. Like it's very and over indexes.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
And people that are poor, yeah, and we're poor so
so like and everybody else who's poor, they do the
same nonsense.
Speaker 7 (44:33):
They're looking for comfortability, which most times is just simply sustainability.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Oftimes keep your ahead above water? Can you tread water?
Speaker 5 (44:41):
The other communities you're talking about the other communities you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
What's the second wealth? Is community?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Ethnic community in the country the second Yeah, like according
you think obviously the majority is the wealth.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
But like that's Asian or you mean by like per
capita or you mean it's probably Asian?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, which which which age?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
I don't know, I would it's it's it's technically Indian.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Right, Yeah, But you can't come here Indian if you
don't have money. And I know I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I don't disagree with you, but you know, you know
I tend to you know, dive in these reports. And
it's the interesting thing about that is that the family
ran businesses are like.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
Over index, right. But what I'm saying small businesses, businesses.
But India has one point four billion people. And if
you have and only if you have enough money in
India can you come here. I mean, like, you know,
my wife is Middle Eastern. Her family had to accrue
some amount of money in order to actually like make
the trip and get the visa and do all the
(45:40):
things that they need to do. And then they got
here and they lived in a motel and her dad
worked at beni Hannah and that's how they started. But
like you go back to where they're from the Middle East,
they've got multiple houses in the same town.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I don't disagree, right, So I just think we got
to start at some point in time.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
This is the wellbread. We got to start change the narrative.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
I think we are. I think we are with what
we're doing. But it's like, you know, what could a
slave teach a sharecropper? What could a share cropper teach
a postman? And what could a postman teach somebody who's
about to go to college? What can somebody was about
to go to college teach us?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I mean that's.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
Literally what happened, which is why my you know grandmother
or grandfather who was a barber.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
That's why their question was do they have good benefits? Right?
Speaker 5 (46:23):
That like that was the that was the only thing
that they could teach because they didn't know.
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Yeah Tras's points about it't know right, yeah, no idea.
And the number one I think, if this is still true,
the number one cause of someone that's doing okay moving
into poverty is a medical incident that they can't afford.
Speaker 7 (46:45):
Yeah, and also unexpected death, which also creates burden on
because people don't have life insurance, right, they don't have
any nest egg, they don't have any assets, they don't
have anything. So the moment they die unexpectedly at forty
three years old and you got three kids and you
live in Middle America, all of a sudden, your family
has nothing, and the people around you who care about
you most, they now bear the burden of bearing you,
(47:08):
you know, putting you in the ground, and then trying
to help your family survive. I do think that that
mentality is very It is very much centric around like
minority communities, of wanting to be comfortable and wanting to
be safe, like survival mode. But I also think it's
very true for poor rural America. I think it's true
for most of Middle America right, like most people are
(47:28):
content with just getting by. I think in certain cities
you have to strive for more just because of like
the shearer cost of living, which is why you see
a lot more disproportionate wealth in places like New York
or Los Angeles or San Francisco, Miami, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
But I think that that's.
Speaker 7 (47:48):
The thing for me is most people are they just
want to be comfortable, like they're not really looking to
live these outsize lives. And I think the happiest people
are the ones who are comfortable not living these outsize lives. Right,
Like it's it doesn't feel good to always need more
and always want more. And I got this car, but
I needed this car. I got this house, but I
need this house. I got this watch, but I need
(48:10):
this watch.
Speaker 6 (48:10):
Like it's what's the saying how much is enough?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
So it maybe we just accept that there's people who
have it and there's people who don't.
Speaker 7 (48:19):
There are more people earning more money that are from
minority communities than ever before. The challenge is is that
like the counter of growth rate of the wealthiest is
just growing so exponentially that yes, that gap is widening,
but technically, yeah, the cost of living is coming and
that's that's what's confiscating. The difference of the income increases, right,
(48:44):
Like people are making more money, but it just doesn't
feel like it.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Right.
Speaker 7 (48:47):
You remember when people would say, oh, you have a
six figure job, Like making one hundred thousand dollars is
like you hit the lottery you're going to be good
for life. That's no longer the case, right, Like, over
thirty four percent of people who make over one hundred
thousand dollars have zero dollars in savings.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
And yet let me blow your mind, if you make
more than forty thousand dollars a year, you're in the
top one percent of people on the planet planet.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
But this is why the jobs aren't coming back, right
to come back. It's just you know, if you're if
you're running a business and it costs you two dollars
to do this thing by having workers do it in
some other country versus what is minimum wage on fifteen
in some places.
Speaker 7 (49:32):
Well some cities, but federally it's still seven dollars in change,
I don't know, seven twenty five something like that.
Speaker 6 (49:37):
You call it the seven twenty five, right, you're going
over there, yeah, right, because it just improves your margin.
And no one is running a business, you know, to
be philanthropic unless it's a nonprofit. And even them, they're
they're thinking about their margins because they need that money
to go as far as it can take them.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
So to that point, right, because there's been a lot
of advocacy work around increasing minimum wage. And as you
increase minimum wage, obviously cost some goods goes up because
businesses will have to make money. Right, if you're going
to make someone pay someone almost twenty dollars an hour,
you got to make it make sense? Is that a
(50:17):
losing game? Like what should people be fighting and advocating for.
Speaker 5 (50:21):
I'm actually shocked that nobody ran on minimum wage, like
for real. I mean I remember, I don't know if
you guys follow New York politics, but at one point
there's this brother who ran on a campaign of the
rent is too damn high. Rent is too damn high.
I cannot imagine why somebody do.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I've never forgotten.
Speaker 5 (50:40):
So it's like it's like I can't imagine why somebody
didn't run on or you know, message like somebody used
to run on this, right, the rent is too damn high.
Minimum wage hasn't changed in forever.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Now.
Speaker 5 (50:53):
You made the point that it's sort of moved over
to the states, But you know, seven to twenty five
is like a you hear that figure, You're like, hold
on a second, that that doesn't make any sense. And
there's this clip I think they asked Scott beseid the
Treasury Secretary in Congress Durn's confirmation hearings, Are you going
to advocate to raise their own wage?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And he was like no. I'm like, why aren't you
guys playing that on repeat?
Speaker 6 (51:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
I mean because that think about that.
Speaker 5 (51:20):
It's crazy, think about what's happened in this country in
terms of wealth. And I think even if the answer
is know, the manner in which the question was answered,
I think says a lot about who we are collectively,
not just I'm not sure is it a.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Forcing mechanism because at some point you go back to,
like everything by design, is it a forcing mechanism of
people needing to step up, because, like I go back
to the jobs aren't coming, they're not leveling up. They've
accepted whatever you've given them. At some point they either
revolt and like protest right and burn down the rich,
(51:55):
or they actually start doing something. And the answer is
building something over volt right revote is get them out
office or get vote whoever you want to.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
I personally think pitchforkds are coming, But I'm also a
bracy I.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Agree with that. I think it's a really really scary time. Yeah,
I think it's a really scary time.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Well, number one, it's always a pleasure Marlon and Eric
round two of what we do.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Thank you for great, incredible conversations.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
I want you guys to have a moment to leave
a tip where to find you or something that our
audience can take away.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Fun of me is easy, So I'll leave that alone.
I guess a tip and to speaking to entrepreneurs, don't
build things for the sake of building things. Build things
that you truly understand, that you believe can add real
value to the world. I believe very strongly that if
you build something of substance and you create value, it
will receive funding. It might take longer than you believe
(52:55):
than you expect it to, but if it is valuable,
someone's going to pay for for it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I think that's really great advice.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
I would sort of tag onto it, which is I
really think people should fight the skepticism that I think
we may be collectively feeling on both sides of the
aisle and take this opportunity to reinvest into this country
in a myriad of different ways. Right it could be
going into public service, It could be joining the military.
(53:24):
It can be starting a business that does stuff with
government contracts. Whatever it is, I do think that irrespective
of how you feel, there's a shift happening in this
country that we talked a bit about. The closer you
can be to the center of it, I think the better,
and I think that there's going to be plenty of
(53:46):
opportunity for folks. I'm still obviously very much bullish on
the US, but I just think fighting skepticism is going
to be really key.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Stay off of social media, stay off of.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Twitter, the news, draw business plans, and the most important
tip I can ever give to anybody is be a
pro like whatever you do, be an absolute consummate professional
in it, know it better than anybody else. And I
promise you making money, lifestyle, all that stuff will not
be a problem for you. And if you're having problems
(54:20):
right now, I would ask yourself what are your professional
at and how does it serve the community around you?
And if the answers to those questions are not clear,
the world might be telling you something.
Speaker 6 (54:34):
And just one of last things is to tag on
to that. Right, my former partners used to say, the
great study to greats, they're playbooks out there, great advice, right,
there're playbooks out there. There are folks that have done
the thing that you want to do at a very
high clip. Study them, figure out what they did and
see which parts of it makes sense for you to
(54:56):
emulate and which parts make sense for you to do
in a slightly different way. But the information's out there. Great,
great advice.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
This is the Wealth Break and that's a wrap, Graace,
Thanks for listening everyone. The hosts of The Wealth Break
are Me, Rodney Williams, and Travis Holloway. If you want
to stay connected, follow us at the Wealth Break on
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(55:27):
com for additional resources to help you on.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Your journey to building wealth.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Malik Soka, with
Meredith Barnes as our supervising producer.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Catch you next time on The Wealth Break.
It's Rodney Williams, co founder of The Wealth Break.
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Listen.
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(00:46):
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Speaker 2 (01:18):
Welcome to the Wealth Break.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
This is where we unlock stories of financial success, pushing,
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way which we hope closes the wealth gap.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Welcome to the Wealth Break.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We're continuing our conversation about building wealth in twenty twenty five.
This is Part two of our Powerhouse segment with Marlon
Nichols and Eric Taylor. If you missed the first part one,
I mean we dove through everything, everything that you could
think about in terms of AI or what was going
(02:00):
on in the current marketplace. I think today we're going
to talk a little bit more about strategies, but most importantly,
we're here with two folks that we admire and respect,
and they have built a living on understanding the market,
understanding market uncertainty, but also making great decisions.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So are you guys ready for this episode.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Let's do a quick little introduction because you could have
tuned into part two and not part one. Our first
guest is someone who's made serious moves in venture capital,
Marlon Nichols. He's the founding managing partner at mac Venture Capital,
where he invests in game changing companies. Before that, he
was at Intel Capital, where he launched one hundred and
twenty five million dollar diversity fund. Marlin's got an ie
(02:43):
for emerging markets and has back brands like Gimlet Media
and Pipe. And before all of that, he was a
Jamaican dance hall singer.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Welcome, ever, man, I wish these intros gave people what
they want to hear right, Marlin runs the largest seed
fun in l How much do you manage.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
About six hundred million, six hundred million dollars?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Listen to him?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Six hundred million dollar fine Angel Investors. One of the
the vcs that actually is not delusional. And what I
mean by that is the vcs historically are so unrelatable
and you just don't see yourself in them, so it's
very difficult to be authentic with them. I think Marlon
represents someone who isn't that, even though his resume is
(03:30):
kind of delusional and you don't relate to it if
you know it. But you know, most founders are not that.
Marlon Nichols, thank you for being here, Thanks for having
me so. Our second guest is Eric Taylor. Eric Tayler
has an incredible technology based PE firm that is doing
groundbaking things across the United States. One of the things
(03:53):
that I would use to describe Eric is how a
very seasoned finance leader.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
He said.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Eric's bold, he's arrogant, he's aggressive, but he's well talented.
Most people would fear that. I don't, and it's an
absolute pleasure. That's why we're friends to be here. That's
why welcome guys. Let's get it awesome. Good to see y'all.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Man. So I got some questions for y'all.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
I think the first one, which we didn't really dive into,
you guys having finance backgrounds, working in finance, people feel
like you've always been perfect, right, Like you didn't make
financial mistakes and had to learn some things by making
those mistakes, right. Would love to kind of know, like,
what are some of the things that you had to
(04:41):
endure in order to kind of get to this point?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Dude.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I couldn't get a credit card for like the first
five years after college. Why So my freshman year of college,
I go to Bank of America. I signed up for
a checking account and they say, do you want overdraft
something or another? And I'm like, I don't really know
what that is, but I'm like sure, and he's like, well,
it's a credit card. It has to you account. I'm like, no, no,
(05:04):
my dad said no credit cards. I don't do credit cards.
He's like, you can just cut it up if you want,
you don't have to use it. It's free. I'm like, fine,
whatever credit card comes in the mail, debit card comes
to the mail, I take the debit card. I literally
cut up the credit card, throw it in the trash.
I then proceed to spend on that debit card like
a drunken salor. I'm not checking nothing, And I get
(05:25):
a message from you know, Bank of America like three
to six months later, like you owe us a thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
You owe us all this money.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And I don't know how, but I didn't connect the
dots between the money that was in my account and
then about that I was spending right, a very basic
fundamental problem.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
So he was using a debit card like a credit
I was.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Using a debit card like a credit card.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Something BAA was after me, like I mean, and for
those who have messed up their credit, you know, it
takes a long time to get off your credit. One
of the ways, f Y, if you're in this situation,
one of the ways you have to do that is
you apply for a special kind of credit card. And
this is this is the ship's embarrassing. You have to
put a thousand or secure one hundred dollars or your
(06:09):
own money in a bank account, and then you borrow
against your own money.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
To prove that credit.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
You know what you're doing, and so I had to
do that literally for like three or four years before
my credit was in a place where anybody would do
anything with me. If you think about it, I was
at Goldman Sachs, like making real bread, and I could
not get a credit card. I could absolutely I was
building financial model.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I was. I mean hundreds of millions of dollars. Could not.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
I don't know how you got hired. Like they do
the background check, and they should have saw that credit.
They should have, which is like that can't be a
red flag. Absolutely should be ala.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
If you're if you're in it.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Maybe not if you're but if you're in wealth management
or any thing that you have to be like job.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
But it would also be funny though, because if they
pulled the credit report, it would have a low score
and it would say one thousand dollars a debt.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, but they're not about to pay him, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
What I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
But it's still your credibility though, right, And like if
you're going to be a fiduciary of someone else's money
and you're that bad with your own, like no one
wants that problem, and it's problematic. I remember going to
the mail room and when I use the work in finance,
and like seeing people's credit reports come off the fax
machine before somebody statched it, like it's a real thing
they do check.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And by the way, it's our only job, Like my
only job is to be good and responsible with money.
Nobody cares about anything else. It's it's the only thing
that I'm hired to do, be good in response with money.
If you lose one of those two things, my mind,
I mean, it's a line out the door.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
One hundred percent. What about you, Marlin is yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
Mine was a little bit later. So this was when
I when I left Intel Capital. And it's really around
just like scenario plan in creating a cushion. A lot
of people don't think about how much money you need
to save put aside before you jump into entrepreneurship. And
(08:13):
also so my plan was, you know, I was building
this fund with my first co founder, and I was
building it while still working at Intel Capital. There's an
inherent conflict of interest there, but one that I thought
I navigated right because I told everyone all the powers
that needed to be that I was doing this thing,
(08:35):
let me rock right, and they said, okay, just don't
let it interfere with what we're doing here, and I
was like, absolutely not. The investment thesis is completely different.
I'm not taking any time away from like my workday,
none of that. So so I was doing that. We
got to our first close. My co found at the
time was fairly famous. So someone picked it up and
(08:56):
wrote I think and I think it was axios to
one of those is that these two were starting a
fund and they've had a first close and they're out investing.
And someone, someone at the firm saw it and ran upstairs,
let me r let me wrong, gotell. And the thing is,
we had a we had a president change at the
(09:18):
at Intel Capital between when that was happening, and a
new dude was like, hell, no, you can't. You can't
be here and do that. So you got a decision
to make either you're going to stay here and stop
doing that, or are you going to go? And I
had literally hours to decide. I'm in the workday, not
(09:38):
expecting this, hours to decide, and I'm like, I started,
I'm doing this for a reason, So I guess I'm
out right. And so then came the mess right because
now we didn't we hadn't raised enough money to support
my salary right. So so it.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Was like, all right, well, what am I going to
do now?
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Right? So I'm looking at all, right, can I borrow against
my four one K, which I only had because it's
something that you automatically get when you get hired. At Intel,
I had what do you call it, restricted stock units,
so I started selling those as fast as I could. Fortunately,
my business partner was wealthy, so he didn't have to
(10:21):
take a salary from the fund. So I was able
to take a very small salary from the fund. But then,
I mean I was on a struggle bus for like
four or five years because our first phone was only
like fifteen million, right, and if you do the math,
you get your fees are two percent of that per year.
It's nothing, right, And so I was running out of money,
(10:43):
getting broke real quick. Living in the Bay Area at
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I mean you might spend that on travel now.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Living in the Bay Area like the most expensive place
to live in the country. That's part of what my
move to to l A. As I just needed something
a little bit less expensive while while I was going
through this. But yeah, but the takeaway is like put
more away, right, like you know, just because you're making
it doesn't mean you need to be spending it at
(11:15):
an equivalent clip.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, we talked a lot about like living below your
means and we can use that for the code switch.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, we're talking about living below or at your means
to build.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well, what is your stance.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Oh, I'm very pro it. If I if I'm giving
advice one percent, you should do it as I do.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, I do as I say that as I do.
So you're saying people should live below that means why
don't you?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
The reason I don't is not a good reason. But
but I'll tell you the reason. I've always had plan
A in my mind. You know, when I when I
was a kid, the some of the similar moments that
I remember. I had the best parents in the world,
but I remember them fighting over money. That was a
(12:05):
key part of my insecurity as a kid growing up.
I remember my family being unstable because of money. Long
story short, you can sort of trace my path from
you know, prep school at Eaglebrook, then Exeter, than Harvard,
than Goldman, then starting my own fund. I always had
a plan A from the time I was a kid.
I'm going to make a lot of money. Because if
(12:26):
I make a lot of money, then I got no
family issues. That's my six year old brain, you know,
that's what That's what my six year old self told me.
You know, you can ask people. When I was like
a freshman or sophomore in college, like interning on Wall Street,
I would tell people like, Oh, I'm going to start
an asset management firm and be a billionaire. And I'm
like eighteen nineteen years old. You know, I don't even
know where the bathroom is. But I was very convicted
(12:48):
in that. So the unmitigated gall of that statement I recognize, obviously,
But I've always had that plan a. I've been very
very secure in that, and so it just never made
sense for me personally to live below my means because
I was like, oh, I'm always going to make more money.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Not a big deal.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Now, just to be clear, that's terrible advice. Do not
do that because you will, you know you can and
will get caught off side.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But I have spent you.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Know, I did spend a you know, I did spend
a long time doing that. And I went through a
similar situation, you know, as you where I started a
business and severely underestimated how challenging it would be. Underestimated
how long it would take, underestimated how expensive it would be,
and I don't have a four O one K today.
Like all that ish got cleared out. You know, I
(13:38):
took major tax hits on, you know, on all of
it just to sort of make end me to just
kind of put you.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Know, oh back taxes for like three years. Oh yeah,
that's crazy. I did not want to go back to
that point.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
So it sounds like Eric, you kind of use living
at your means, not below your means, as almost like
a motivation to just go get more correct.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
I actually think more often than not, the cautionary tales
that you see are neither below or at it's above, right,
So when people say live below your means, I think
that's good advice. But you know, you could probably get
by if you're only saving a little bit and just
you know, living really really well. But ultimately it's just
(14:24):
going to be about your goals. I mean, you need
to figure out if you're in a situation where you're
building equity or not. I've always been in a situation
where I was building equity. So if you were to
take my future net worth or whatever, I think my
future net worth will be and discount it back to
today and amortize that. That basically means chop up, chop
it up, as if it's evenly distributed through the years.
(14:47):
In my mind, I'm like, even if I spend all
this cash, I'm still up. I'm still making money.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Obviously I have to get to that future value in
order for that to be true. But that was the
mentality that I had in mind. And again, the utter
arrogance of that statement is not is not unbeknownst to me,
but but you know that's that was my mindset.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It's like, if you if your ambition and aspiration can
go in the ring, you probably should do that, right
because what you ultimately also saying is that today is
below my means, even though it's the max of my
current correct correct but today is below.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
My me below my future mean. It is below my
future means.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
The way I think about it is what some of
these older billionaires wouldn't give to have stunted when they
were twenty five.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, so you're fifty or fifty.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Five years old, you're in Monaco on your yacht doing
all the things that you wish you would have done.
What they wouldn't give to be twenty five and doing that,
and I never wanted to have that feeling. That was
really important to me. Now again, I'm not giving advice.
I'm just telling you what I did.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, interesting thing, whether we knew how we did it
or not. I feel good about what I did. I
feel great, feel fantastic, felt I feel great.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't know how it all. I feel great.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
But I think it's because we've all still continued to
be relentless in the pursuit of the equity, you know,
building right.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
It's you can sit here today and still feel good.
Speaker 7 (16:21):
About what you did wrong because you feel good about
where you're at and where you're headed. I think that
that's probably like the biggest thing is you don't feel
like you really lost anything.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
You just feel like you've gained a lot.
Speaker 7 (16:34):
You might not have experienced it all yet to your pockets,
but like you know that it's there.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And I'm going to say this a little bit differently.
If you are working in a salary job and you
make one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, we are not
saying go over spend.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Go act like you make three hundred, No, but we
are saying, if you're an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
If you're a business or you're aspiring to do more
and right now it's a little rough, you can probably push.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It or don't be or don't don't be hard on yourself.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
Yet we all go through that period, you know, And
I think that's the most important thing, right, Like, that's
that's what I was kind of getting at. Is like
when you have certain titles and you work in certain industries,
people just feel like you do do it by the book,
and everybody doesn't do it by the book and everyone
everyone isn't over prepared and doesn't always plan.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
You talk about plan A.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
I talk about that all the time, that there is
no plan B for me, Like my eggs are in
this basket because I'm building this business, Like that's so
important to me. But I do think you know, to
go to the responsible side, like as you have a
family and you have people who depend on you, like
it is important to make sure that you don't put
them in circumstances that are you know, unhealthy and unsavory.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But you know, to start my family late, yeah, yeah, right,
I waited until I was in a place where I
could actually be comfortable around around that likewise, and that
was very intentional.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, I've always said that it was a competitive advantage.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
My time capacity just got more time.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah, I just don't have to do many other things
because I don't have the family part At some point
in time, you got to choose differently. But it is
a competitive advantage if time is I think time is
like inconsistency on projects.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's actually like the biggest accelerator or cheat.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Code in my opinion, because I feel like I'm gonna
time you out of it, like I'm gonna wear you
down eventually.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But if you don't have time for that, it's hard.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
I think that depends on your partner too, though. Right,
if you have the right partner and you have a family,
you could go toe to toe with somebody that is,
you know, one hundred single and in the field, right
because because you got coverage, you have a partner.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It might even be better because more motivated exactly.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, it's just harder to control somebody else, harder to
attract that.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
It's got to be a right situation.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Got to be the right situation, I think. Yeah, I
don't think it's hard to attract it. Yeah, if you're
doing what you're supposed to be doing now. It's got
to be usually to be clear about.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
Looking for I don't think it's hard to attract it.
I think it's right to discern whether or not it's
right or not. And I think there are people that
you might think are offering that, but they're not.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, I think my biggest challenge we're looking for that partner,
it's the realistic reality of what it takes to be
an entrepreneur and them understanding my level of commitment and
how I'm much I'm willing to sacrifice. It's always uncomfortable.
(19:33):
So that's the part. It's not that they you know,
you're right. I may contracted, you know, I set them up,
but like sometimes I you know, being an or attracted,
not contracted, contracted, no attracted?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
IoT, what's going on? Yeah, I feel like it.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Looks good on the billboard, but when you when you
go to the party, the party is a tough party.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I mean, I think it's true for whomever your partner
may be.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
But I think it's also important that people realize that
we make real big sacrifices every day too, right like
time away, time on planes, time in the hotels, missing
family events, you spend a you make really major sacrifices
every day and write and whomever is with you is
(20:24):
also making significant sacrifices, sacrificing time. And I think that
is an inhibitor to people taking risk and being relentless
in pursuit of their dreams. Because when someone's calling, who
doesn't understand to your point, who doesn't understand that he
needs to do this, He needs to be away, He
needs to stay at the office, like he needs to
(20:44):
be on this trip that you think is vacation just
because of the destination, but it's actually still work.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You know.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Those are some of the challenges that I think people
don't realize.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
He need to be able to do with no audience
because like nobody cares, Like I don't care that you
are a flight last week, I don't care that you
work hard, you know.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
And people are inherently self interested. Nobody else cares. But well,
I'll take what you just said to another like level.
You know, I'm Caribbean, and I think most first generation
American citizens that come from the Caribbean. In addition to
a family that you might have like your your immediate family,
(21:26):
you have your extended family. You're probably got cousins. If
you have siblings. If you your parents, you end up
having to think about what's going to happen to them
if you run out of money, because you're probably you're
probably carrying them to some degree, right, And and so
(21:48):
when you think about entrepreneurship and being able to make
that sacrifice, you know, for for for someone that looks
like whose background looks like mine, it's not I'm not
just thinking. I can't just think about what's gonna happen
to me. I got to think about what's all these
other people right that are are kind of dependent on
(22:10):
this thing going right or wrong.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
So you've definitely clearly taken risk in your career, But
do you feel like you would have taken more risk
if you didn't feel like you had that I'm not
going to call it a burden, but if you didn't
feel like you had that responsibility, would you take more
risk than you took or would you take It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Say, right?
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Did you ever feel like it held you back from
being able to take a risk?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, because because like you think, Okay, I got this
opportunity in front of me, may or may not pan out.
You know, I got to take this major pay cut, right,
now for a little bit. What's going to happen when
I take that pay cut and somebody needs this from me,
I can't really do that well.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
I mean, it's the same thing in terms of the
way I was, you know, sort of living, spending every
dollar that came in. I really felt like, Hey, if
it all burns down, I still have me, you know,
I like, yeah, I can still go out here and
make money. I can still reset because I'm not responsible
(23:09):
for anybody.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Now, I will shout out.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
I grew up with parents who both had master's agreed.
My dad's a doctor, my mom's a lawyer, and so
they they're really responsible for giving me that comfort that
allowed me to take these risks. I'd like to think
that I've completed the task, certainly to their satisfaction but
(23:34):
also my own. But but it's hard to you know,
it's hard to do that without that backing and that
solid foundation starting, which is why you know, families and
setting it up for this next generation.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I know we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Is so important because your kid can't take that risk
unless they know that all they got to worry about
is their own.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Skin, or they or they have a nest to contact you. Right,
if you lose everything, you don't want to be out
on the street. If you if you can go back
to you know, the mom and dads, then you know
that gives you more more courage if you would.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
I mean, that's why people drop out of like Stanford
and Harvard and start companies.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's like, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Right, Like, I don't I don't have a mom on
dialysis that I'm good exactly, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I Mean, that's the freedom that I talk about. I
think that's the that's what I aspire to have, and
I think that's what you know, you guys probably aspire
to give your kids and your family members, is the
freedom to do the things they want to do, when
they want to do it, and not have to think
about the consequences as it relates to changing the lifestyle. Yeah,
(24:44):
because that's what I just that's what you know, That's
what always I'm always like, I may not be able
to do that, that's too risky because it might wipe
me out. Versus I want to I want to sometimes,
I want to be asked free to be as I
want to be. I want to do some I'm like
it'll wipe it out, but somebody will catch me because
(25:05):
but you know, nobody's gonna catch you problem and you
know they're looking to be caught.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I got to catch you, got to catch them.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
So so that that's that's the challenge. So I want
(25:33):
to talk about a little bit about the economy, just
giving your backgrounds. One, how do you feel about the
current environment? Tariffs, cost of living is high? Interest rates
just remained flat. What what do you think is going
to happen? Do you think that these terroriffts are going
to get rolled back?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Marlin? Do you think that they're gonna they're here to stay?
What do you what do you think?
Speaker 6 (25:54):
So? I mean, I'm just I'm just going about my business,
mine and my business right right now.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's it's don't like to take stance, it's it's uh.
Speaker 6 (26:07):
It's an incredible environment that we're in right now. Where
on a daily basis, if you thought something was red,
now it's blue. You thought something was up, now it's down,
and then tomorrow is back up again. Publications are are
having a time right now because the current administration is
in office because they got stuff to talk about. It's
(26:29):
not it's not boring. The negative part of all this
is that the American people who are going to suffer
as a result of this. Right, you mentioned tariffs. Well,
first of all, the economy. Economy is not great right now.
Stock market is not doing well. We had maybe a
week where there was like a glim a glimmer of hope,
(26:52):
but that's now gone. Unemployment is at an all time high,
like people don't have jobs, can't get jobs, and then
people are getting fired for no reason from their jobs
if they work for the government. So there's just a
lot going on that's not good. And the tariffs are
also not good. This president I think I've read somewhere
(27:15):
that he has the lowest rating all time for this
this period of time in office ever, and it's it's
related to to all this stuff. But the tariffs, you know,
they're in place, and I think a lot of American
businesses are going to start to feel the pain from that.
(27:39):
I think also American consumers are going to feel the
pain from that, which means that ratings, his ratings are
going to approval ratings are going to go even further down,
and the folks with money that back this administration are
going to start to get upset and they're going to
start to make noise, and I don't think he's gonna
(28:01):
have a choice but to reverse them. The other thing, too,
is like, for some reason, I guess the administration felt like,
you're just gonna, you know, bully other countries that we
actually depend on for a lot, and they're like, we're not.
We're not gonna have that. So now we've got counter towers,
(28:22):
which is also another reason why folks are gonna feel
a lot of a lot of pain. And I do
think it's gonna ultimately going to be rolled back. It's
just not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Eric, what do you think? You got a different perspective.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I'd maybe just start by contextualizing what I think the
administration is trying to do. Whenever I see things that
don't necessarily make sense to me, but I see people
who are obviously very talented around those things, I try to,
you know, like run a red team analysis very okay,
Well what are they thinking? And you know, like I
(28:55):
read JD Vance's Hillbillyology, I know that a lot of
the base that got this administration into office feels very
left behind. And so here's what I suspect is happening
in the like sixties, seventies and eighties, there was a
very clear effort to do two big things right, lower tariffs,
(29:17):
to open up the American economy, and do things to
make sure that the dollar was the base currency for
the world. And those two things I think we all
knew would make for you know, deeper and wider and
better financial markets. It would create tons of opportunity. We'd
have the best schools, we have the best and brightest
people coming, and you'd have your record highs in the
(29:39):
stock market.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
The housing market would blow up. I mean, all these
great things.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
But the other aspect of it is that the jobs
were going to get sent overseas. So like this whole
like you know, this whole like jobs are getting sent overseas,
people being surprised, as ridiculous, like we knew that the
jobs were going to go. The idea was that the
people who had those jobs were supposed to upscill So
if you were a coal miner, you should be upskilling
(30:05):
to a coal mine engineer, right whatever it is. That
was like sort of the missing middle where people didn't
upskill and you had no catch up in mid and waight.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
So the mini wa doesn't change what since O eight
oh nine. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
So wealth is the wealth gap is increasing. It might
have slowed down a little bit, but like it's still increasing.
And I think all the goals that our economic leaders
had in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, they I think happened,
except you left this massive group of people behind who
did not upscale. Who's at fault everybody, right, I mean,
(30:42):
the schools are at fault for not teaching them to upscale.
They're at fault for not trying to upscale, the governments
at fault for not giving them the tools whatever. And
so I think Trump is trying to reverse a lot
of that. Right, This is like the post World War
two economic environment that the United States is in. Trump
is trying to turn that all around. And I think
(31:04):
it means turning our back on a lot of alliances.
I think it means that the United States is not
going to be the sort of center for world peace.
I think it means that if you are dying of
tuberculosis in you know, a third world country, like you're
dying of tuberculos in a third world country, like we're not.
You know, you used to be like you know, you
(31:25):
might have American care package coming, you know, I think, now, look,
you're on your own good luck, and I can see
both sides of it. I think that the manner in
which it's being done is a little bit scary. But
I do think that whether it's you know, Scott has said,
Howard Lutnik, you know, Donald Trump, Mark Rubio like, I
(31:47):
think all these people have been very very clear about
what they're doing, and I don't think anybody should be
really confused. Now there's a question of you know, what
do you do to make money in this economy, in
this environment. That's you know, that's a separate conversation, but
that's what I think is happening. When I look at
the tariffs, I think I see them as here to stay.
I don't see why, you know, I don't think these
(32:09):
are negotiating tactics.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I don't think he's playing around.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
I think he's actually upending the post World War II
economic sort of worldwide economic setting that we've all grown
so used to. He's turning it on its head so
that the people who've been left behind can start to
catch up.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
To some extent, there's a misconception though that I think
a lot of is taught in certain communities is that
it's not a strategy, it's not by design, it's not deliberate,
it's a radic it's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Meaning it's not rhyme to the reason.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And whether I agree or disagree, what I do believe
is that it's one hundred percent by design. Everything is
right now in play for a certain agenda. And the
best thing that we can do is try to figure
out if we agree or we like it, or what
that agenda would look like. And it's going to get
uncomfortable and rough in the middle. And I don't even
say we're in the middle of it. So how do
(33:04):
you guys feel about where the people are headed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Though? Right?
Speaker 7 (33:08):
So, like if tariffs are here to stay, let's just
assume they're here to stay.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right.
Speaker 7 (33:15):
Costs continue to rise. We know unemployment is high. We
know that costs of living through the roof. We have
people who are literally using buy now, pay later for
door dash now right, the fifteen dollars Chipotle bowl comes, right,
you know, the twenty dollars McDonald's, because it's not a
(33:36):
dollar minue anymore, gets to your door and you're literally
spreading that out over for payments.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
That's why Klarina just file for appeal. This is this
is the perfect environment for company.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
But I just want to be really really clear, like
I'm sorry, but one thing though is people aren't going
to upscale, right.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
It's not like a bunch of these individuals are all
going to be AI engineers all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
That's not going to happen. The jobs that are going
are not coming back.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
So we know that that's a force, right, Like, Hey,
I'm going to go to Michigan and say that I'm
going to bring the auto industry back, and I'm going
to go to West Virginia and say that I'm going
to bring coal mining back.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
We know that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 7 (34:14):
But those same people have now kind of aged into
a point where they're like retirement age because they are
a bunch of boomers. But then the younger generations that
are in locations like that, they're not going to upscale.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
So like what happens, You're fucked. I mean, I want
to be very clear. The solution in this country to
going from being poor or working class has been the same,
and that's not changing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
What is that solution?
Speaker 5 (34:45):
It's a capitalist economy, get capital and build equity.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's the only way to do it. That's the only
way I know how to do it. Now.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
If you are in medical school right now and you're
planning to be a doctor, don't listen to my advice.
You've probably done more school than I have, so whatever.
But for everybody else right who is not doing like
an advanced degree going into doctor Laura engineer, who probably
doesn't listen to this podcast anyways, who's trying to figure
out how to build wealth, create equity value for yourself.
(35:17):
And you can do that with a business. It could
be a lemonade stand. You could do that with a home.
You could do that by buying homes and renting them whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
You could do that by investing in markets reliably and
over time. But we live in an economy that rewards
you becoming a professional, a pro in building equity and
building capital.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
So irrespective of whether or not Klarna's charging interest on
Chipotle burritos or what's going on with tariffs like that,
stuff shouldn't really matter to you if you're trying, if
you're in the intro stages of trying to build wealth,
because it's not going to stop you from building wealth.
These are just details now when you have money, these
are things that you should be thinking about. But you know,
(36:03):
again like if if you've got more money than me,
I don't know why you listen to me on a
wealth podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Anyways.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Yeah, you know, the part of this that we're not
talking about too is the attack on non white people.
There have been lots of things built into the laws
that govern how things are done in this country over many,
(36:32):
many years that don't allow or didn't allow certain groups
the ability to get capital so they can build equity
and it. You know, I'm I don't know four hundred
percent or any percent, but it sure seems like we're
(36:55):
trying to go back to a place where certain groups
are not afforded the liberty.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Can you name one thing, because obviously I disagree, But
can you name one disagree? I disagree that anything has
been rolled back that helped systematically.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
Affirmative action is the number one, i'd say, economic tool
to put many women in business and help them to
create wealth. That's definitely has been rolled back.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
There should have been so much more of an uprising
about affirmative action rollback then there has been about DEI rollbacks,
And I'm not saying that DII doesn't matter, but affirmative
action was so much more impactful to getting people behind
the door versus knocking on the door than DEI ever was.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
My only problem is that once a Supreme Court case,
one's the administration man.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Since the point of measuring the wealth gap, it's only
accelerated in the past couple of years, since twenty seventeen
has accelerated more than it's ever had in the history
of tracking it. So I just want to be very
clear that a lot of these programs were not effective
at doing it in a an a scalable way. What
program you're talking about, deffermative action, affirmative action, I'm just
(38:18):
talking about from a wealth I'm listen, I'm talking about
from a wealth gap of considering by.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Ethnicity or sex.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
That the gap has gotten larger, so the income of
them have increased. But what happens is that group continues
to outpace this group. So this group that is, you know,
growing their wealth by twenty percent, thirty percent every year,
this bottom group flat.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
So just to be clear, are you saying I just
want to make sure yeah, what you're saying, are you
saying that the wealth gap has gotten wider because that's
one thing. Or are you saying that we have less
wealthy people from certain demographics than we did prior to
affirmative action.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I'm just saying it's two different things. I'm just saying
that the wealth gap is large.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
Well, that's different.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
It is.
Speaker 6 (39:14):
It is, and I'm not it's not, And you can't
directly attach that to affirmative action.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I don't disagree.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
But what I am saying, though, is that that is
a data point that's important, is that despite the improvements
and people of color or of sex in higher education
and better jobs and better roles and better quote unquote lifestyle,
their wealth hasn't disapportionately changed in reference to the other groups.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
And that's what that's because they're not building wealth, right,
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And and that's all. That's all I'm getting.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And I think it's also because the systematic things that
separate those two are still difficult to create. Equity, getting
licenses of businesses, owning businesses, get eating loans for homes.
They're still just they're actually more difficult today than they were.
It's just really different, Like no one that looks like
(40:10):
us can go out and start a bank as an example,
it's like less black banks today, there's less black businesses
that actually of certain value. There's a lot of black businesses,
but of certain value is actually less today. It's less
black media companies, it's less women owned media companies.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The truth when you start to Parson.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
You are speaking, you're speaking against your point.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
No, but I'm just not trying to say is that
I think it's So what my point is in a conclusion,
is that I think the system that needs to be
addressed is like the structural system, the bureaucracy around creating
businesses and owning businesses for all people, because that is
what I think.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Builds real wealth. And that system is still very very prejudiced.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
So to be clear, though, like affirmative action didn't say
just because you're black you get this thing, right, you
still have to have have qualifications, and in most cases
those qualifications had to far exceed your white counterparts.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Right, So so we're not we're not talking about here's
a hand meet handing. I'm not giving you anything, right,
I'm allowing you the opportunity to participate in this game.
You can play in the game. You still got to win.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, just about this game is not about a well game.
Speaker 7 (41:26):
But two things though, Like affirmative action also was like
the challenge was you're trying to get into You're trying
to get this job. You're trying to get into an institution,
and you have the same qualifications or even higher qualifications
and your non counterpart and they're still getting the nod
and you're not getting the nod. Like affirmative action was
to make sure that someone who had at part or
(41:46):
better qualifications or background could actually make it there. I
think that from a business sense, if you can't get
the job at the law firm, you can't get the
job at the marketing agency. If you can't get the job,
that means you can't get the income in order to
start to build equity, because every person's not going to
be a business owner, right and every person shouldn't be
(42:08):
a business owner. But if you can't get the job
to then start to invest in the markets as an example,
or start to earn the salary to allow you to
get the.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Say you can't work for yourself, you can't salary yourself
to wealth.
Speaker 7 (42:20):
I don't think you can salary yourself to wealth, but
you have to get the salary first to start right,
So like you got to get the salary in order
to get the down payment so you can get the
rental property or to get the home to start building
the equity. So if people aren't able to get in
the door because affirmative action doesn't exist and they're no
longer getting the nod, they're qualified to be there, but
(42:42):
they can't be there, then you're creating this really big
challenge where you have all of these people who will
never be on the path to building.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Well. I just think there's illusion.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yes, I think the illusion is that we have taught
so many people that getting the job is building. Well,
we were taught getting I was supposed to get the
job at PNG and work there for twenty five years.
This concept of leaving when I had the opportunity to
leave was like, you're crazy.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
What are you doing.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
You're supposed to do with my dad did, which was
work there, get pension. And what I'm trying to tell
you is that ideology or that narrative was not a
wealth building narrative. That was a stay in place, be
a worker in narrative.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
But the generation before us didn't know any better.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
But that's why this is I remember my grandmother when
she was asking about my job at Golden Sachs. The
first thing she asked me she said, did they give
good benefits? Think about how crazy of a question that is, right, Like,
I'm taking this job because I'm like, well, I want
(43:45):
to start my own fund at some point, I want
to raise billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I want to do this. And she's like, how's there dental?
Speaker 7 (43:51):
Yeah, that was the goal because she thinks he's going
to work there, so you're sixty five.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
I mean that, like quite literally, that was that was
the idea, right, So the context wasn't even there to
help guide you know, our generation of so many of
these cases.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
But but you know, only in our community is that taught?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Like that like when you when you talk to something truth,
I just think it over indexes in certain communities like yeah,
because there's certain other communities like they're like, I think
it owns something by something. Let's let's pull together and
open up a little store. Like it's very and over indexes.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
And people that are poor, yeah, and we're poor so
so like and everybody else who's poor, they do the
same nonsense.
Speaker 7 (44:33):
They're looking for comfortability, which most times is just simply sustainability.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Oftimes keep your ahead above water? Can you tread water?
Speaker 5 (44:41):
The other communities you're talking about the other communities you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
What's the second wealth? Is community?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Ethnic community in the country the second Yeah, like according
you think obviously the majority is the wealth.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
But like that's Asian or you mean by like per
capita or you mean it's probably Asian?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, which which which age?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
I don't know, I would it's it's it's technically Indian.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Right, Yeah, But you can't come here Indian if you
don't have money. And I know I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I don't disagree with you, but you know, you know
I tend to you know, dive in these reports. And
it's the interesting thing about that is that the family
ran businesses are like.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
Over index, right. But what I'm saying small businesses, businesses.
But India has one point four billion people. And if
you have and only if you have enough money in
India can you come here. I mean, like, you know,
my wife is Middle Eastern. Her family had to accrue
some amount of money in order to actually like make
the trip and get the visa and do all the
(45:40):
things that they need to do. And then they got
here and they lived in a motel and her dad
worked at beni Hannah and that's how they started. But
like you go back to where they're from the Middle East,
they've got multiple houses in the same town.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I don't disagree, right, So I just think we got
to start at some point in time.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
This is the wellbread. We got to start change the narrative.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
I think we are. I think we are with what
we're doing. But it's like, you know, what could a
slave teach a sharecropper? What could a share cropper teach
a postman? And what could a postman teach somebody who's
about to go to college? What can somebody was about
to go to college teach us?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I mean that's.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
Literally what happened, which is why my you know grandmother
or grandfather who was a barber.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
That's why their question was do they have good benefits? Right?
Speaker 5 (46:23):
That like that was the that was the only thing
that they could teach because they didn't know.
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Yeah Tras's points about it't know right, yeah, no idea.
And the number one I think, if this is still true,
the number one cause of someone that's doing okay moving
into poverty is a medical incident that they can't afford.
Speaker 7 (46:45):
Yeah, and also unexpected death, which also creates burden on
because people don't have life insurance, right, they don't have
any nest egg, they don't have any assets, they don't
have anything. So the moment they die unexpectedly at forty
three years old and you got three kids and you
live in Middle America, all of a sudden, your family
has nothing, and the people around you who care about
you most, they now bear the burden of bearing you,
(47:08):
you know, putting you in the ground, and then trying
to help your family survive. I do think that that
mentality is very It is very much centric around like
minority communities, of wanting to be comfortable and wanting to
be safe, like survival mode. But I also think it's
very true for poor rural America. I think it's true
for most of Middle America right, like most people are
(47:28):
content with just getting by. I think in certain cities
you have to strive for more just because of like
the shearer cost of living, which is why you see
a lot more disproportionate wealth in places like New York
or Los Angeles or San Francisco, Miami, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
But I think that that's.
Speaker 7 (47:48):
The thing for me is most people are they just
want to be comfortable, like they're not really looking to
live these outsize lives. And I think the happiest people
are the ones who are comfortable not living these outsize lives. Right,
Like it's it doesn't feel good to always need more
and always want more. And I got this car, but
I needed this car. I got this house, but I
need this house. I got this watch, but I need
(48:10):
this watch.
Speaker 6 (48:10):
Like it's what's the saying how much is enough?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
So it maybe we just accept that there's people who
have it and there's people who don't.
Speaker 7 (48:19):
There are more people earning more money that are from
minority communities than ever before. The challenge is is that
like the counter of growth rate of the wealthiest is
just growing so exponentially that yes, that gap is widening,
but technically, yeah, the cost of living is coming and
that's that's what's confiscating. The difference of the income increases, right,
(48:44):
Like people are making more money, but it just doesn't
feel like it.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Right.
Speaker 7 (48:47):
You remember when people would say, oh, you have a
six figure job, Like making one hundred thousand dollars is
like you hit the lottery you're going to be good
for life. That's no longer the case, right, Like, over
thirty four percent of people who make over one hundred
thousand dollars have zero dollars in savings.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
And yet let me blow your mind, if you make
more than forty thousand dollars a year, you're in the
top one percent of people on the planet planet.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
But this is why the jobs aren't coming back, right
to come back. It's just you know, if you're if
you're running a business and it costs you two dollars
to do this thing by having workers do it in
some other country versus what is minimum wage on fifteen
in some places.
Speaker 7 (49:32):
Well some cities, but federally it's still seven dollars in change,
I don't know, seven twenty five something like that.
Speaker 6 (49:37):
You call it the seven twenty five, right, you're going
over there, yeah, right, because it just improves your margin.
And no one is running a business, you know, to
be philanthropic unless it's a nonprofit. And even them, they're
they're thinking about their margins because they need that money
to go as far as it can take them.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
So to that point, right, because there's been a lot
of advocacy work around increasing minimum wage. And as you
increase minimum wage, obviously cost some goods goes up because
businesses will have to make money. Right, if you're going
to make someone pay someone almost twenty dollars an hour,
you got to make it make sense? Is that a
(50:17):
losing game? Like what should people be fighting and advocating for.
Speaker 5 (50:21):
I'm actually shocked that nobody ran on minimum wage, like
for real. I mean I remember, I don't know if
you guys follow New York politics, but at one point
there's this brother who ran on a campaign of the
rent is too damn high. Rent is too damn high.
I cannot imagine why somebody do.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I've never forgotten.
Speaker 5 (50:40):
So it's like it's like I can't imagine why somebody
didn't run on or you know, message like somebody used
to run on this, right, the rent is too damn high.
Minimum wage hasn't changed in forever.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Now.
Speaker 5 (50:53):
You made the point that it's sort of moved over
to the states, But you know, seven to twenty five
is like a you hear that figure, You're like, hold
on a second, that that doesn't make any sense. And
there's this clip I think they asked Scott beseid the
Treasury Secretary in Congress Durn's confirmation hearings, Are you going
to advocate to raise their own wage?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And he was like no. I'm like, why aren't you
guys playing that on repeat?
Speaker 6 (51:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
I mean because that think about that.
Speaker 5 (51:20):
It's crazy, think about what's happened in this country in
terms of wealth. And I think even if the answer
is know, the manner in which the question was answered,
I think says a lot about who we are collectively,
not just I'm not sure is it a.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Forcing mechanism because at some point you go back to,
like everything by design, is it a forcing mechanism of
people needing to step up, because, like I go back
to the jobs aren't coming, they're not leveling up. They've
accepted whatever you've given them. At some point they either
revolt and like protest right and burn down the rich,
(51:55):
or they actually start doing something. And the answer is
building something over volt right revote is get them out
office or get vote whoever you want to.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
I personally think pitchforkds are coming, But I'm also a
bracy I.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Agree with that. I think it's a really really scary time. Yeah,
I think it's a really scary time.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Well, number one, it's always a pleasure Marlon and Eric
round two of what we do.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Thank you for great, incredible conversations.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
I want you guys to have a moment to leave
a tip where to find you or something that our
audience can take away.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Fun of me is easy, So I'll leave that alone.
I guess a tip and to speaking to entrepreneurs, don't
build things for the sake of building things. Build things
that you truly understand, that you believe can add real
value to the world. I believe very strongly that if
you build something of substance and you create value, it
will receive funding. It might take longer than you believe
(52:55):
than you expect it to, but if it is valuable,
someone's going to pay for for it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I think that's really great advice.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
I would sort of tag onto it, which is I
really think people should fight the skepticism that I think
we may be collectively feeling on both sides of the
aisle and take this opportunity to reinvest into this country
in a myriad of different ways. Right it could be
going into public service, It could be joining the military.
(53:24):
It can be starting a business that does stuff with
government contracts. Whatever it is, I do think that irrespective
of how you feel, there's a shift happening in this
country that we talked a bit about. The closer you
can be to the center of it, I think the better,
and I think that there's going to be plenty of
(53:46):
opportunity for folks. I'm still obviously very much bullish on
the US, but I just think fighting skepticism is going
to be really key.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Stay off of social media, stay off of.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Twitter, the news, draw business plans, and the most important
tip I can ever give to anybody is be a
pro like whatever you do, be an absolute consummate professional
in it, know it better than anybody else. And I
promise you making money, lifestyle, all that stuff will not
be a problem for you. And if you're having problems
(54:20):
right now, I would ask yourself what are your professional
at and how does it serve the community around you?
And if the answers to those questions are not clear,
the world might be telling you something.
Speaker 6 (54:34):
And just one of last things is to tag on
to that. Right, my former partners used to say, the
great study to greats, they're playbooks out there, great advice, right,
there're playbooks out there. There are folks that have done
the thing that you want to do at a very
high clip. Study them, figure out what they did and
see which parts of it makes sense for you to
(54:56):
emulate and which parts make sense for you to do
in a slightly different way. But the information's out there. Great,
great advice.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
This is the Wealth Break and that's a wrap, Graace,
Thanks for listening everyone. The hosts of The Wealth Break
are Me, Rodney Williams, and Travis Holloway. If you want
to stay connected, follow us at the Wealth Break on
all platforms, and be sure to visit the wealthbreak dot
(55:27):
com for additional resources to help you on.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Your journey to building wealth.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Malik Soka, with
Meredith Barnes as our supervising producer.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Catch you next time on The Wealth Break.
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