Betting Big on Digital Entrepreneurship: Immanuel Joy's Journey in startup accelerators, international banking and cultural finance

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a more complete beast podcast where we
discover and distill strategiesto drive the needle forward on
your life.
Today we're sitting across fromEmmanuel Joy, who is a digital
entrepreneur and digital nomad.
We cover a lot of ground inthis podcast.
We talk about finding yourniche, discovering an area that
might actually need a problemsolved that doesn't exist in

(00:23):
your area, as well as coveringall things cultural all around
the world.
But always, if you learnsomething in this podcast, do me
a favor, leave a five starreview, follow this podcast and
we're publishing this one onYouTube.
So if you want to see the videoversion, go on YouTube, search
a more complete beast and makesure you like the video and
subscribe there.
Now let's get into it.
How long are you in town for?

(00:44):
You said you have to go up toNew York.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
On Saturday.
So on Saturday I leave to NewYork for two months and then
back to South America.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Okay, in New York you're looking for.
You, said VC, no, no so theyalready missed it.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
We're part of an accelerator, so basically what
that means is are you familiarwith Y Combinator?

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Explain that.
What's that Y Combinator?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
you said so it's basically like the goal of an
accelerator is they grab anearly stage company.
So in lots of companies applyand they're like, okay, this
team looks good, this idea looksgood, their product is already
kind of out there.
Okay, now we're going to investin this company.
So it's a large amount.
So Y Combinator, it's like 500K.
If you get selected, you get500K, for us it's 250.

(01:28):
But basically they give youthat amount of cash and they say
at a certain valuation, andthey say, hey, okay, you're
going to have all the like theirinvestors, right, they're going
to be like we're going to helpyou for two months.
So basically, any marketinghelp you need, okay, we want to

(01:49):
redesign your business proposal.
Like, if it needs help, you'regoing to pitch to us every week
to you know, because they wanttheir money back.
Right yeah, so it's like a.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
They're an investor.
They want to return Exactlyyeah.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
So it's like a two month program where every day
you're in classes, you know,listening to, like people are
actively coming and being likeokay, how do I help you guys?
Like, what do you guys need now?
Okay, like, do you need thisconnection, do you need that one
?
Like, so that's.
It really takes a company tothe next, the next level,
because now you're being backedby actual, you know, big VCs.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
That's awesome, so it's basically like entrepreneur
school.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, exactly, that's exactly what it is Like if you
look at all these companiesAirbnb, you know, google,
dropbox, like, whatever they alllike their first stage was an
accelerator.
They go to an accelerator.
You get a certain amount ofcapital at you know several
million in valuation, like we'revalued at several million, and
then using that, using that thatwon the money but also the like
that wealth of you knowconcentrated like knowledge and

(02:48):
you know networking and all thissort of thing.
Like then, over the next year,we want to see product market
fit.
We want to see, you know, tonsof users in the app engagement
and then you want to take it toseed.
So seed is like the check sizesget bigger.
So like, okay, in a year I'llgo back and be like, okay, our
app, the real help we go app has, you know, 100,000 users.
We're doing you know fourmillion a month in volume.

(03:10):
We want to expand to not justColumbia.
We want to go.
We want to expand to Argentina.
When I expand to Brazil, wehave this other part of our
platform.
You know we have these otherideas Now.
Like we want a $5 million check.
So then, like, the bigger, youknow the same VCs that you talk
to like an accelerator, they'llbe like, okay, here's my
connection over here.
Like you'll be in constantconversation with these guys,

(03:30):
right, Like how are you guysdoing?
Okay, like let's, let's see, wecan give you the, you know the
four or five million.
Like how's your company doingnow?
So that's the, that's the.
That's like seed right.
Um, I was just like walkingthrough the whole the stages.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, so Y Combinator is the first step.
That's when you comment YCombinator is the first step,
you have some, some proof ofconcept.
Oh, yeah, exactly, and but youneed the connections, you need
some liquid to get it to thenext level and it's like a class
they're teaching the peopleinvolved in it.
So, would you and your partnersgo yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:59):
everyone's required to go.
It's like a Monday throughFriday, you know, 10 hours a day
, basically like you're just,whether it's like you're working
, like you're, this is your fulltime job, like there's no, they
don't even, they don't let youhave a secondary job, right, so
there's, this is like all you'regoing to do and you're going to
have all the research to go doit.
So they're saying, hey, we'retaking a bet.
So for our accelerator um, Iactually can't say the name

(04:20):
because we have the NDA till theend of this year yeah, but uh,
basically, out of hundreds ofcompanies, they picked eight, so
eight companies, each one, uh,each one is like a team of two
or three people and so that's,like you know, 20, 25 people in
total.
Uh, you know, just just team,the, the, the, the founders,
like 20, 25 founders, and allthese like the, you know the

(04:43):
people, the investors, the,their, their marketing
organizations, like, uh, forinstance, uh, I did, for
yesterday we got on a call witha guy who's um, he ran the
marketing organization forCoca-Cola, pepsi, like all these
big agencies, and he was like,okay, like we want to re, we
want to design a story for youguys, so we're going to help you
convey a story in less than 45seconds to anyone.

(05:05):
And then you know, basically,when I sit down with him, like
every week, to try to redefine,you know, refine that story.
But this is what they do, right, this accelerates to, to
accelerate you.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Right Makes sense, and if it shows promising growth
, that's when you start to getsome some.
What individual venturecapitalists?
Or is it still part of thataccelerator?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
So what really like an accelerator of EC firm is is
just like you got a bunch ofrich guys, right.
Like, so you got you know someguy who's worth 30 million and
the guy's worth 100 million orwhatever.
And then you just say, hey,like I have so much money, I
don't know what to do with it,right?
So here I'm going to make afirm and you guys go find some
companies that you think arereally promising and then deal
with, like make them pitch acouple of times, make them

(05:45):
present and, you know, if it'sgood enough, accept them to my
VC fund, and then they'll get acertain amount of money, like
that's what a VC firm is, right?
So it's just like, like,depending on the firm, like
there's varying, varying levels.
So, for instance, y Combinatoris founded by the chat GPT guy,
sam Altman, right, and so he'sboatload of money and he's like,

(06:08):
okay, we need to find, likewe're going to find the next
unicorn, right?
So we're going to invest in youknow 400 companies that's the Y
Combinator strategy, right?
400 companies, like every yearor something like that, right,
every quarter, I think, and thenone of them is going to be
wildly successful and we'll getall.
We'll get all our money backright.
The other, it doesn't matter if, like, 90% fail.
If we just get 10% that aresuccessful, like we get it all

(06:29):
back right.
So that's the strategy withthem, same thing with our
accelerator.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
So they're taking asymmetric bets.
What they're doing is for them,that's a small amount of money,
and they're willing to spreadthat risk over a large amount of
companies because when a homerun is hit, they make it back
100%.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Exactly Like, for instance, right now we have
several million in valuation.
So let's say I won't I don'tknow exactly the exact number
because we can't but like it'sbetween, it's between three and
five.
So let's say, let's say it'sfive, right, if this is on the
pre-seed stage, that's us like,right before the product is

(07:07):
actually in the market.
You know, maybe it is in themarket but it has some initial
traction.
That's kind of where we are now.
Let's say, in a year from nowwe have you know, a certain, a
couple million in volume everymonth, that sort of thing.
We can go back and say, hey,okay, I want, you know, we're
going to ask for $3 million, acheck for $3 million for maybe

(07:29):
you know, 20% of the company.
So what is that?
$15 million valuation in total,right?
So the accelerator that theyinvested $250k at $5 million,
right.
And now they're going to get itback for the valuation now $15
million, right?
So if we were to sell thecompany, we found some buyer and
we agreed on, you know, $15million valuation.

(07:51):
That makes sense, that's, youknow, we're going to buy you for
$15 million.
That accelerator would getthree times the amount of money
they put in, right?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Makes sense.
So they're investing for, forappreciation of the company, not
for cash flow.
So they're not taking, like,let's say, you make X amount off
of every transaction.
They're not worried so muchabout that.
They're worried about the finalsale to really, you know, 3x,
10x, 100x, their initialinvestment, yep.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Ideally, like they want a unicorn, right, right.
It's like if you're a $100million company, let's say
you're a billion dollar company,a billion dollar valuation, if
they invest at you at $5 million, that's, you know what are we?
$200x, $200x?
Yeah, that's, that's ridiculous.
Like that's, that's ideallywhat they're with Y Comner I
think it was.
Actually it was Y Comner.

(08:38):
It was like Sequoia.
Sequoia is a huge like VC firm,but they, for instance, they
put $100K in Google in thebeginning and then I think the
check size at the end was $600million.
That's crazy, yeah, so that's,that's the goal, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Right, what made you?
What do you think made thempick your company to be part of
this accelerator, like, whatabout?
It is, I guess, proprietary, orthe potential niche that it can
really exploit.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
So it's a, it's a couple things.
So VCs in general are kind oflooking for, like we've.
We've done a lot of failedpitches, so we've pitched a lot
of VC firms and I mean like, oh,you know, your product isn't
like, isn't, you know, developedyet, or you know, like I think
the competition can, you know,can kill this product pretty

(09:25):
easily.
But basically you learn fromall those experiences and you
know you do it like 10, 15 times, you fail like 10, 15 times and
eventually you get like, okay,like everyone asks this question
, what's her answer?
Right, everyone asks about thecompetition question why is you
know, why is Rolampica differentfrom the other one?
We need to have a concise,concrete answer that takes like
two minutes and then boom, likeevery single question that

(09:47):
someone could ask, like we needto know exactly what to say.
Right, and it's just arefinement process.
And eventually we got to theplace where we could, you know,
coming from at the stage wherenow, the early stage, we have up
one, a product to a market,like an, an, like an obvious

(10:07):
market to target and also like asense of what our value at is,
like what are, what are.
Our unique value at is over anyother competitor and we can
easily and concisely deliverthose that message right, so
that you know, once you get tothere, like you're going to find
.
In my opinion, you're going tofind someone.
If you can fit all those threecategories, you're going to find

(10:28):
someone who will take it better.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
And that's that concise manner, talking to
somebody that maybe doesn'tunderstand it as well.
I was reading over the theYahoo Finance article you sent,
that you guys are in and Iunderstand you work with strike
in some capacity.
So, first off, I have to askwhat does strike do?
And second off, if you had toexplain to me what your company

(10:54):
does, what would that be?

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, our company name is Rolampico, right,
rolampico means lightning inSpanish, okay, and so there's a
couple different.
We have several offerings,right?
So the Yahoo Finance articlewasn't in particular about the
Rolampico app.
It was about some I'll get to.
It was about a separateoffering, but basically I want

(11:15):
to put this out.
So what we do in general is weoffer instant payments to
basically companies like B2Bcompanies in the US.
So we have an API platform thatoffers, like, if you, if you
wanted to make instant paymentsfor something to Mexico, right,
like, maybe you need a, you hada contractor that you hired and

(11:36):
you wanted to pay that guy,right, what you'll notice, like
the first thing you'll try to dois like, oh, okay, let me go on
.
You know transfer wise, ormaybe you know remitly or a re
or something like that, andyou'll try to make a payment.
And then a number of thingswill happen.
Right, a lot of those servicesthey'll say you know the market
themselves is like oh, theperson gets their money in 10

(11:57):
minutes, or they, you knowsomething, or maybe it's the
same business day, or somethinglike that.
Right, that's at a low cost.
And a lot of times what happensis they don't actually fulfill
that promise or they'll dosomething like, for instance,
the other day we had to pay ourlawyers in Colombia.
We went to TransferWise.

(12:18):
Transferwise says the moneywill be delivered in seconds to
their bank account.
So then we go on TransferWiseand we try to pay our lawyer or
a firm who have a bank inColombia Bank of Colombia is the
biggest bank in Colombia and wetry to make that payment and
then the payment comes backrejected and says, hey, they
need to have a particular flag,like an option, set in their

(12:44):
particular account within Bankof Colombia to actually receive
the payment.
And we're like ah, come on, andthey only do it to one bank, so
just Bank of Colombia, not anyother banks.
So, like, there's theseservices.
The current existing servicesto send money to Latin America
are like yeah, we'll deliver onour promise if, if, if, if, if,
like, if you, if you have abunch of criteria and you know,

(13:07):
plus a bunch of qualifications,that sort of thing, right?
So basically, we wanted tocreate a seamless payments
experience for anyone and wehandle all the lat times and so
it doesn't matter what bank yousend to, it doesn't matter what
sort of user they are orwhatever, like they're just
going to get the money instantly.
So with with Strike, what we dois any strike does a lot of
different things Like they, they, they're involved in, um, they

(13:31):
have like a global extend money,like instant payments layer.
They also have, uh, they dothings with like a Bitcoin and
that sort of thing.
For us, like all, all we do isprovide any strike user with the
ability to send money to Mexicoinstantly.
So that's like using our APIproduct and then they're.
They're just one of our clients.
We have several other clients,but that's what we do in general

(13:51):
.
We just basically any of in inin Mexico or Argentina.
Right now, we can send moneyinstantly to, to, to, basically
for any business.
So you skip the middle man skipthe middle man and also we are
like we are directly integratedwith, um, the domestic payment

(14:12):
rails in all these countries, soin the individual countries
themselves.
There's like a process toactually work with Mexico.
Like the banking system iscalled SPA and that's like
instance, so if you were to sendmoney from your you know uh,
bank of Mexico to a a, a, a, asteca bank, like the money would
arrive instantly domestically,but internationally that it's
not instant right.

(14:33):
So like we are basically likebridging that entire, uh, that
entire flow that way for youknow you to send money to, to
whoever, or you to pay someoneor whatever.
Basically it happens is how isit safe?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Because, for instance , it's easy.
The structure of banking makesme feel secure, right, makes
everybody feel secure.
That's why we use them, that'swhy we put money in our banks,
even though with fractionalreserve banking it's not even
there.
But there is a security thatcomes with an established
structure that has been here fortime and memorial.

(15:07):
So how is it that you're ableto do this?
Skip them, skip the middleman,and still provide safety to the
customer?

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Uh, can you?
Okay?
So, when you say safety, sookay, so, we do use the banking
rails, right, we're not skippingthe banking rails by any, by
any means at all, right, okay,so, like, the end customer has a
bank account, it's just, it'sjust that, let me, let me, let
me put it this way Okay, I'lluse Columbia as an example.
Right, okay, so in the U?

(15:34):
S, in the U?
S, we have, everyone has a bankaccount, right, you know, you
have, you have, I have Chase,you have, maybe I have Bank of
America or Wells Fargo orsomething, right, everyone is
banked.
Right, yes, so in Latin America, that's not true?
So, if you're in Mexico, over60% of people don't have a bank
account.
So, like, the 40% will have atraditional bank.
The rest of the people use cash,right, in Columbia and I want

(15:56):
to use Columbia as an examplebecause that's where we really
have a like, a unique value add,and this is really illustrates
what the product does.
So in Columbia, it's sort ofthe same thing 40% of people
have traditional bank accounts,but the other 60% have basically
apps, banking apps called like,like WeChat, if you're familiar

(16:17):
with China, right, so they haveone of two apps like.
One of them is called Neki, oneof them is called Davi Plata,
and these are like it's like anapp where you can go create a
bank account without eversending it to a bank.
So you just get an app.
You know you, just you.
Now you have a bank account,you open account there, right?
And then you can go to agrocery store, deposit some
money.
It shows up in your bankaccount.
You can go to any store andjust pay with a QR code with

(16:39):
your Neki app.
So, basically, like all thesepeople are, they have bank
accounts, but they're not thetraditional ones, right?
So if you go on TransferWiseand try to send money, you can't
actually send money to thosepeople.
They have to have a real bankaccount, right?
So it's not like we didn't skipthe banking system.
To be clear, right, we brought,we created infrastructure that
integrated those neo banks withthe traditional banking system.

(17:02):
So now an international personright In Colombia itself, those
people who have Neki can go paya person who has a regular bank
at Columbia, or they can pay aperson who has a regular WVN,
but me, from my chase, I can'tpay someone who has a Neki.
I can only pay someone who hasa traditional bank account.
So we basically createinfrastructure that bridge the
layer between these.

(17:22):
They're called neo banks.
They're all everywhere in SouthAmerica with the traditional
banking system there and thenintegrated that with the
international payments.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Perfect.
So basically, you are theconnection between traditional
banking and these, exactly theseapp bank accounts, whatever
they're called, yep.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
And this gives me, if you mind, I'll talk about like
the actual product that we have.
So Rilampa goes the name of thecompany, and our whole idea was
when I was inso about two yearsago well, maybe three years ago
now like COVID was starting, soeverything got locked down and
that sort of thing, and I waslike, okay, like I was in Boston

(18:01):
, I was living there and Bostonwas like a ghost town.
I was like, okay, I need to getout of here.
I don't want to go home andlive with the family, I want to
go somewhere else.
Where can I go?
For relatively cheap and Ilooked at it for relatively
cheap and also like a countrythat doesn't have entry COVID
restrictions right, becauseevery country in the world was
like Locked down man Exactly.
So I looked and I was like, huh,okay, el Salvador was one of

(18:25):
them and Colombia was the otherone.
And I was like, huh, you know,I speak Spanish, I've never been
to South America, let me go,just book a flight over there
and see what's up, right?
So I booked the flight and toColombia, went to Bogota and
about.
Basically, I just started justhanging out.
You know just where I wasworking.
I was working for.
Who was I working for?

(18:45):
I was working for, I think itwas.
I was a contractor at Facebookat the time as an engineer, but
I don't remember.
It was a long time ago, butessentially, like, I was there,
I was working remotely, you know, having a good time.
And then I started noticingthat if I wanted to make a
payment, basically like if Iwanted to just buy some chicken

(19:07):
at the local corner store, likeyou know, you know I was like
pay anyone.
Like if, like here, like wehave Venmo right, like someone
buys me some drinks, and I'mlike, okay, how do I pay this
guy?
You know, like for anything,right, it was just a horrible
process.
I'd be like, okay, do I reallyneed to go to Western Union to
send this?

Speaker 1 (19:25):
guy Like do I?

Speaker 2 (19:27):
have Venmo payment for $10?
Or I'd try to get onTransferWise or I'd get on you
know remitly and be like shit,okay, like he doesn't have the
correct bank account to be ableto receive this payment.
So then I started noticing thisproblem everywhere and you know
other people that I talked to,like especially foreigners right
, because they would have aforeign bank account and we're
trying to like maybe some expats, maybe some tourists constantly

(19:50):
have this problem.
And I said, hey, you know, Ihad I come from engineering
background, software engineeringbackground, and basically I had
two friends that also they'realso engineers and I was like,
hey, like can we, can we thinkof a solution to this problem?
Can we basically build thatinfrastructure to connect these

(20:11):
neo banks, these Nekis, theseDawey Pladas in Colombia with
like regular infrastructure so Ican actually pay people?
And basically this was aboutlike three years ago, initially,
like when I started noticingthis whole concept fast forward.
Maybe the product went throughlike several revisions, like

(20:32):
initially it wasn't completelyNaturally so fast forward, like
maybe a year or maybe even ayear and a half, to be honest,
and then we kind of got the sortof infrastructure that,
basically the first vision ofthe infrastructure that we have
now.
So I'd say the company started.
The Rolampago idea startedabout a year and a half ago, but

(20:53):
essentially during that periodwhen I was there in Colombia and
other parts of South America, Ijust noticed the fact that I
just couldn't pay anybody and Iwas like, okay, let me try to
fix this problem.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
So you found a niche in a different market.
Yes, it wasn't necessarilywhere you were at the time in
Boston.
It was after you went somewhereelse you were able to find hey,
this is a problem that exists.
I'm going to try to attackExactly.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
And it's not a problem.
That is, to be honest, like ifyou go to Colombia or Argentina
or whatever.
It might take you six monthsbefore you really, because you
have to understand what's goingon.
You can't be like oh, I see aQR code, okay, whatever, that's
not like a NECI QR code.
I don't even know what thatmeans.
It takes a while of justtalking to people, just screwing

(21:40):
, goofing off and just havingjust normal conversations with
people for a while before youreally understand.
Okay, this person, okay, why dothey have a NECI account but
they can't have a traditionalbank account?
Like, why do they prefer havingthis NEO bank when they could
just walk into the bank and opena bank account?

(22:02):
Or maybe what's the reason?
Where's their distrust of thebank system?
Or is there a deeper issue atplay?
There's a lot of cultural andsocioeconomic issues that people
face that you have to build apicture in your head, and once
that picture was built for me, Iwas like okay, now I understand
that this is a huge, not justfor me.

(22:23):
This is an issue that's gonnabe a problem for a long time in
Colombia.
Let's tackle it.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
So if I went to Colombia and I wanted to buy
chicken at the corner store andI pull out my American Express
or whatever, that's gonna be theproblem they wouldn't take it.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Okay, that's my yeah exactly, and then you're solving
that problem Exactly.
If you have the Relonpago app,you can just pay anyone.
Let's say the corner store guyhas Relonpago right, all you
need is phone number and youjust make a payment and it's
instant to his neckie, his dowie, plada, whatever.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
And it's as secure as banking because it's using the
Rails on banking.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's not cash, right.
Cash is the anonymous insecure.
We are completely banked, we'recompletely using the banking
Rails.
It's just all these people thatPeople don't even know about
this problem, right, Like, oh,what do they use in Argentina?
What do they use in Colombia?
What do they use in Brazil,right.
But now, like me, being downthere kind of opened my eyes to

(23:23):
this whole.
Okay, there's millions andmillions of people who use
banking, but not in the way thatI would think of it.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
That's interesting because I have never experienced
that.
We were just international.
We were in Switzerland and itwas very easy for me to pay.
I just had my Visa or AmericanExpress, whatever we were using,
and it was just easy to swipe.
But I guess I wouldn't havethat same convenience in.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Colombia, or it's a constant problem Every time when
I want to pay someone.
It's happened so many times,not just me to friends,
everyone's a common experience.
For instance, in Cartagena, alot of tourists go there for the
beach and that sort of thing.
If you want to get a jet ski,the guy's like, okay, it's $90,

(24:10):
right, you pay for the tour andthe jet ski and everything and
you're like, okay, well, how doI pay you?
He's like, oh, a Neki.
And you're like okay, but Ican't make a Neki.
I don't have a Colombian number, but they don't know that right
, to them it's just likeeveryone.
Just A Colombian comes in andthey want to get a jet ski, they

(24:32):
pay with their Neki, easy, boom.
So there's no distinction forthem as a tourist.
As a tourist, you have to gofind the nearest ATM.
That could be three blocks awayMake a trip over there, get the
$100 or $90 or whatever andcome back and in-pace those and
come back and pay them, right.
So this is a constant annoyingexperience.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
So it sounds like it makes it easier for developed
nations to do business with lessdeveloped nations.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Exactly, exactly so, and not even I hate to use the
word developed.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
I just meant.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
You know what I mean the banking rails are.
It's more like, not even likein the sense of developed
country.
So, like I was a tourist inColombia or Brazil right, I was
having a tourist experience butalso the majority of tourists
quote unquote or expats that goback, there are actually

(25:21):
Colombian immigrants who livedin the US and now they just like
, oh, I'm going to go back home,but they have a dollar account,
they have their US bankingaccount, right, they're not
going to get rid of it, and sothey prefer to keep their money
in dollars as opposed to in peso.
When the peso is constantlydeflating, right, why would you
keep your money in yourColombian account?

(25:42):
I mean, you can hold dollars,right, so they're more stable.
Exactly right.
But now how are they going totransfer their money in dollars
to pay someone in Colombia?
What they would do is theywould what they normally do is
they take those US dollars,transfer it to their Colombian
bank account and then, from thatColombian bank account, go pay
someone.
So they do a wire transfer orsomething like that, which takes

(26:05):
a couple of days.
They have to constantly keep abalance in Colombia so they can
go pay normal people.
I don't know if that's makingsense.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
It makes sense, yes, but why is it that?
60% or 40%, whatever it was,don't trust the traditional
banking or they don't use it.
They use this NECI accountinstead.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Definitely it's a complicated thing, but in
general, latin America hasalways been cash heavy.
So in To be honest, it makessense because banks have always
been predatory.
So banks like, if you want tomake a bank account for a long
time they used to be oh you needproperty, oh, you want to take
a loan, okay, we're going tocharge a ridiculous amount of

(26:43):
interest and then there's nobanking in Latin America has
always been for the exclusive.
Maybe the elite or upper middleclass.
That sort of people, the normalpeople who work normal gig jobs
, may work in Uber or maybe theysell stuff on the street or
something like that.
One like they don't even knowthe whole digital.

(27:07):
What is digital finance,digital banking, which is so
common in the US or in Europe orsomething like that, or in Asia
?
That's not something that theyhave really an experience with.
And what happened is about threeyears ago, when COVID started.
Everyone was stuck in home,right at home, and the

(27:29):
government had to pay people,subsidiaries.
Every month they received acouple hundred dollars or
something to keep everyoneafloat right In the US.
The government was doing thattoo.
So how is the government goingto pay all these people who
don't have bank accounts.
So income, neo banks.
So basically, for this reason,you, neckis popped up the
Dabiplata pop up New Bank inBrazil and it was like okay, how

(27:52):
do we, we're going to bridgethat gap?
These neo banks constantly saylike in their publicity oh,
we're not associated with Bankof Columbia, like they are, like
they're just a part of Bank ofColumbia, neckis is just Bank of
Columbia.
But they'll say like in theirpublicity they're like oh yeah,
we don't work with those guys,we're just here for you, the

(28:12):
regular people, right?
So they was like a bridge intopeople, like getting people like
more comfortable with digitalbanking.
They were able to see theirgovernment subsidies like come
in every month and they're like,oh, okay, let me see how this
works.
And now people are like, okay,let me just open a traditional
bank account because you know, Iknow how Neckis works, I know
how you know, let me, let melike make that final step.
But there's basically atwo-part answer.

(28:34):
One is the banks themselveswere, you know, you know, ass
holy of course.
And then secondly, the lack ofuh uh comfortability with uh
just banking in general inLondon, america.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Could you see this, and maybe not with your company,
but I I'm just now thinking, asyou're bringing this up the
niche, cause I did you know Iwas looking into different
things like smart contracts.
Could you see this type oftechnology being used?
If, if the banks are extremelypredatory and it's tough for
somebody to get a loan, couldsomebody use something like
you've developed for peer topeer loans with smart contracts?

(29:11):
Cause that seems like just whenyou're bringing that up, that's
immediately what I went to,like we can create this secure
smart contract, peer to peer.
Where I make a loan to you, Isay the bank is requiring that
you have a $500,000 house andyou know, uh, another house in
the Hamptons, whereas I couldjust be like, okay, I just want
to know that you have a job andI can charge you 5%.
It seems like there's a nichethere too.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think.
So that's interesting, but Ifeel like that would work in the
in the U S, right, okay, inLatin America people don't have
as much, uh, um, like it'spoorer, right, so there's rich
people but there's not as manylike people with so much
disposable income to be able togive you a 500K loan, right,
like, like, like, for instance,in in Columbia.

(29:53):
Just to put in perspective, um,the average, the, I think the
average salary is like $700 amonth.
Right, that's the averageperson, it's, and it's much
cheaper to live.
Right, you've taken Uber.
It's like $3, right, and that'slike a 20 minute Uber, but
that's, you know, compared to anAmerican, like $700 a month is
like what?
A quarter of minimum wage?

(30:14):
Like, it's not even right,Exactly.
And when you talk about thatlevel, like you're not going to
find, you know, maybe thepresident of Columbia makes like
a 90K.
You know that's which here is.
You know a lot of people make90K.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, so you're in middle class.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Exactly Right, so, but there you can live really
well with with 90K Um, but, thatbeing said, like there's going
to be less opportunity for youknow that that smart contract
thing that you were saying rightProbably would work in here,
right you?

Speaker 1 (30:42):
know right.
I wonder then, if you are ableto and I'm not, I'm just
shooting the shit now if you'reable to transfer funds or let's
say, um, I guess, transfer fundsor pay somebody, if you have a
US bank account to a NECIaccount, maybe you could also
develop not saying you, butsomebody could potentially
develop something.

(31:02):
Where you know internationallythere can be a smart contract
and something between people.
You know what I mean.
So you can skip that step.
Use the traditional bankingrails but have it so it can be
more peer to peer and lessthrough the traditional
structures.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
No, that's that.
That could be a great idea.
To be honest, Cause I'm gonnatake it to.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Y combinator.
I need 500 grand to start thisno no, no, I mean, I'm just.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
this is like making me me think, because those
people that you know, the 60% ofColumbia that uses NECI right,
they, getting loans is a hard, areally hard thing.
Even like a small loan, like a,you know a $1,500 loan or you
know something like, which islike nothing for us, right?
Right, like a minimum wage, amonth as a minimum wage or two
months as minimum wage employeeof Walmart?

(31:45):
Right, but that like one likethe bank is not going to give
you a loan because they're,they're like, okay, but you, you
, you you're like a gig worker,right, your gig, could?
You know it starts raining andthen you can't sell anything in
the street.
You know whether you're sellinglike empanadas or something
like.
That's like a lot of people,right?
Yes, so you know it's hard forthem to get loans and appear to

(32:06):
appear, especially if it comesfrom the outside, could work
very well.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
And that makes sense to me, because I'm thinking like
you almost can turn yourselfinto a venture capitalist.
You, you can be like a just aupper middle class American,
make 150 a year and you're aventure capitalist down in
Columbia.
It makes, I mean.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
That's actually phenomenal.
That's actually not a bad idea,bro, If you develop that.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
I want to be the first VC that's making loans to
Columbia.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
No, but this is what I mean, this is what.
This is exactly what I mean,like when you go, instead of
like living around here, like inthe US right, we don't really
have a lot of problems Like wemight have some problems like
our, I don't know, maybe like inLashen Netflix password.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, dude, I don't like typing on the screen,
that's not really a problem.
Yeah, first world problems,yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
First world problems, right, but when you go and you
know, go to different places youcan see every place has like a
unique situation, right, thesame problems that are in
Columbia are not going to be theones in Brazil.
The ones that are in Brazil arenot going to be in, you know,
saudi Arabia or India orwhatever.
It's more like like if you havea set like you, like you just
put the I just told you aboutnew banks and you're like, oh,

(33:14):
now I'm thinking about, you know, peer to peer loans and stuff.
Right, that sort of thing islike what people don't do, right
, that's the.
The fewest people are going togo out there and you know, put
themselves in a new culture, anew language, and try to figure
things out, and then, and thenthe payout is big right, because
, like you're doing somethingthat how many Americans are
going to actually go and dosomething?

Speaker 1 (33:34):
like that, very few, but yeah exactly.
Wow, that makes a lot of sense.
And just to bring it down toeven maybe more of a local level
, for instance, the gym that Iopened the gym there was no gym
in the neighborhood closed, soit wasn't I didn't.
I mean obviously goinginternational.
There's going to be hugeopportunity there.
But even just somebody couldlook at their small town or the
next town over yeah, like whatisn't, what don't they have here

(33:56):
?
Maybe they don't have a greatplumber, maybe they don't have a
great gym, maybe they don'thave a great laundromat, dumb
stuff like that, maybe theydon't have good, affordable
housing.
So now all of a sudden youstart developing housing.
So I do think that's a goodsalient point to draw from.
This is, if there's noopportunity in your neighborhood
because it's saturated,sometimes just moving the next
neighborhood might be a goodopportunity there.

(34:17):
But obviously internationalthat's going to provide all
types of opportunity.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
No, I mean, I mean you're totally right.
You were talking about theneighborhoods, but in the like
US, like in the you're in thisone.
This called the sack.
You want to go over to likethis, is Jeanette, right?
You want to go over to I don'tknow like Greensburg, or go over
to you know some other township, right?
Maybe those problems aredifferent, right?
No?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
that's true.
So was this your first swing at?

Speaker 2 (34:41):
entrepreneurship First swing going the whole way.
That makes sense.
Like I've had, like you know,I've always been a language guy,
which is what you know.
I could go to South America,you know I'm a big Spanish, that
sort of thing, but you know,speak a bunch of other languages
and you know I've always wantedto like, way back in the day I,
like you know, created alanguage product to like use
like chatbots, to, to to kind oflike help you learn as opposed

(35:05):
to like learning grammar andstuff like little lessons on do
lingko.
You just like talk to a chatbotand just keep asking.
But AI wasn't as as good back inthe day as it is now, so it was
more like a maybe it was aboring chatbot.
Chatbots were more boring backin the day but yeah, that was
like a one idea that I had incollege and I didn't like we
pitched to a couple of schoolsbut we didn't like it kind of

(35:27):
dropped it afterward.
You know, it was like workingat a regular company and yeah,
okay, there's going to be a lotof work.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So was that just phased out because of technology
or you're just like the payoffisn't going to be here?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Multiple multiple things.
Also, like just out of collegeprobably wasn't in the right you
know what's the word like stateof mind to be, to be thinking
about what is entrepreneurship,what it requires.
I was, like, you know, workingat a regular job, you know, you
know, having fun with my friends, you know, just doing this
little thing on the side.

(35:58):
It wasn't really like, oh, I'mgoing to take this to the seed
and you know, you know, series Aor whatever, right, which is
really the mentality you want tohave and VCs want you to have.
If you're going to have, like,there's a sacrifice involved,
right?
So, at like 22, probably, yeah,I was.
I was just not in that state ofmind.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
So you think it was just a maturity thing?
Yeah, as you got older, you'relike I can do this, like I'm
going to put the effort in andmake this happen.
Yep, yep, so you're in.
So let's take it back further.
Since we're starting to talkabout this, you're born and
raised right around here.
Yeah, so you went to.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Greensburg.
I went to Greensburg, salem orup to middle school and then I
went to Kiske Prep for highschool.
Okay, so yeah, salzburg,greensburg, all this kind of
generally.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, it's all kind of around here, and then you
went to Rice after that.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yes, In Houston.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, it's easy too, and, like you know, you and all
your sisters went to like crazygood schools, man.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, I know, like all of them, bro, like your
sisters come up to the gym and Italk to them.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
I'm like everybody in this family is smart.
It's just a fact.
Why do you think that is likeyour whole family?
Because there's a lot of peoplethat grow up in this area, and
I mean there's a lot of peoplethat have success here too, A
lot of people that don't at all.
So why do you think it's thatyou literally you and all of
your sisters are doing so well?

Speaker 2 (37:17):
So my family came over here from India.
I came here when I was maybefour or five.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Your first generation .
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
So like I learned English when I came here, you
can't tell now, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
So that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
But basically so my parents, just I'm rewinding a
lot so that he's fine.
So my parents were Christianmissionaries in India.
So they, they, they grew up inIndia, they went to, they
actually went to medical school.
So they're they're, they'reboth doctors.
But afterward my dad had areligious experience that
changed his basically that he hechanged his whole life, or so

(37:53):
he didn't.
He didn't pursue medicine atall after that.
So they basically both him andmy dad, or both him and my mom
went like we're from the South,they went all the way up north
to to work with, like indigenoustribes and basically people
with, you know, it's just veryremote areas, and try to bring

(38:13):
one, you know, the Christianmessage and also try to help
them out in a in a lot of ways,like whether it was medicines,
whether it was, you know, justin general education, so
business.
They spent their whole livesworking with these people.
But in India, being India isvery complex in a religious
sense, so there's a lot ofreligious issues that pop up.
Religious violence being, youknow, an extreme issue,

(38:35):
depending on, you know,depending on how the politics
are, is at any particular moment, like my dad being a pastor,
being a Christian in certainareas, it pretty much became
unsafe for him to continue doingthat.
My parents basically made adecision at one point that you
know, I was, I think, four, andthen my little sister was like

(38:57):
one or two and they're like,okay, this is, this is not, we
can't be here, right.
So they, back in the day the USimmigration policy wasn't as
right now it's really hard toactually get a visa to the US,
but they're, they were able toget it pretty quickly.
They had like one, I think, onerelative in the in New York or

(39:17):
something, and so with that,like, if you had a relative in
the US, they weren't, theyweren't like especially from
India, they weren't putting alot of restrictions on that.
So they were able to get onepretty quickly, get a, get like
a visa pretty quickly and get toget to the US.
And basically we had to startover from scratch, right, my
parents didn't speak EnglishLike they.
They learn English in the sameway.

(39:39):
Like you know, people herelearn Spanish like we learned
Spanish in school, right?

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like I've taken four years, I can't speak Exactly
right.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Like cause, you don't have to right, exactly.
So so they, yeah, they cameover here and we, essentially
like they, they went to medicalschool in India, but they have
no.
Like they never completed theirresidency right, so there was
no.
Like you can't just practice,right, you can't just go be a
doctor, you know something.
So eventually, like my parents,and because of the whole

(40:06):
tangent to being missionaries,they weren't really able to
utilize, like you know, theskills they, they, they, they,
or the knowledge they, they hadright.
So, they had skills, but onpaper Exactly Like.
So eventually, like it wasreally hard for us growing up
till I went to to high school,so you know, they got a trailer
here.
So, basically, like, I lived ina trailer out on 819, like, and

(40:30):
that was my dad used to printshirts for and that was how he,
like made a living, right, hewas just, you know, work with a
friend of his and print shirtsall day.
We made $5,000 a year till Iwent to college.
So, like, that's as a familywith you know, six people me and
my three sisters and twoparents, and that's, that's

(40:50):
nothing.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Right, you can't like , yeah, can't even live in
Columbia, exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
You can't even that's .
Colombian salary in the but yeah, right, exactly, and no, it was
just.
It was sad for him because he'sa very educated person, but
like, being kind of forced tojust like one, like the language
was very hard for them whenthey started, like they couldn't
.
It was hard to like theycouldn't.

(41:15):
I remember they tried to likework at Lowe's or something and
it was just too poor that theycouldn't like communicate with
people enough to be like asalesman at Lowe's or something,
right, so that that aspect waswas pretty hard.
And then, yeah, just just themoney, the income requirements.
And then, and me growing up, orme and my sisters growing up in

(41:39):
that, in that like very lowincome household, like that was.
That was how we grew up, right,that's the context, essentially
what.
What made them different wasevery time we come to the dinner
table, my parents would.
We wouldn't have like aconversation like oh, like, oh,
you know, you see, the Steelersgame today there was, there was
never any of that.
It would just, it would just belike, hey, man, you like, what

(42:01):
do you think about heaven andhell?
Like do you think you're goingto?
You know, like what, what's,what do you think happens?
Like when you die, right?
Or man, here's a?
Here's a book, right, like,here's a book on evolution, and
why do you like?
Is this like we're Christians?
But like this is this is true.
Like evolution is the, you knowit's, it's scientifically a

(42:22):
fact.
Right, like, this is like, whatdo you think about this?
Like, and it was always theconstant.
Like you know, if you have aconversation with my dad, like
you probably know, he probablytalked to him, but he's a very
interesting guy like you just,and constantly being forced to
not just be like, okay, like,I'm going to go, I'm going to go

(42:42):
study some things in school,maybe get some grades, and then
go, you know, play soccer orplay tennis or whatever.
Like, or you know, just dowhatever.
It was just a very extreme focuson okay and like, there is a
point to understanding.
You know science and art andliterature and there's a reason
for all those things.
Right, like it's it, it makesit, it put a framework in like,

(43:04):
oh, these things are important,right, one for just for the sake
of understanding.
And two, because if you want toget out of this like a Poverty,
right you, this is how you doit.
Right, like you, you got to bethe best, and so that was
something that was instilled inmy In, like in us as kids from
from a very, very young age.
So like it in, I guess, like ina final answer, your question

(43:26):
right, if you have that mindset,it doesn't matter what
circumstances you grow up with,grow up in what like, yeah,
financial level you're in, likeyou can basically supersede all
that.
I.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Agree, that's what's awesome about the United States,
that's just true.
That's very because you can dothat.
Yep, right, and I'm not.
Obviously I didn't live inIndia, I'm not a specialist in
it, but I know it's not enforcedby the government as much.
But there is a culturalenforcement of the caste system
in India.
Yeah, yeah, like, once you'rein a certain level, you kind of

(44:02):
stuck there, right.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Oh, actually, let me.
Let me use, because you justmentioned the United States
being like fantastic for thissort of thing and Like the in
terms of like social mobility,right, and I'll use an example
from from Columbia.
So my girlfriend you know Ilive there now and in the
company is based on everythingmy girlfriend's Colombian, we've
been together for two years andher, basically her, I'm really

(44:26):
good friends with her family.
So her younger brother verysimilar kind of person to me, so
we get along very well.
He like like he'll go basicallyhe'll finish work and then
he'll go go home and then getlike on like courses.
He'll get like online coursesfor like Udemy, if you know.
Yeah, I think so, exactly.
So like he'll get some courseson you know some coding courses

(44:48):
and He'll watch everything.
He doesn't speak English.
He just, you know, knows like alittle bit of English, but like
he'll watch everything inEnglish, subtitle, in Spanish,
right, and then he'll try totake those over and then go to
his like coding and editor, likewhether he's making a game or
something and coding is inEnglish, right, like Python,
java, like this is all Englishwords Like the computers don't
understand, you know, even basiclike what is that a loop?

(45:11):
What is a for loop?
What is a for?
Is an English word, right, itdoesn't make any sense in
Spanish.
So, basically, he will likewrite, copy them all over and
then like painstakingly, likemake sure, like translate
everything, like, oh, what doesit mean?
What is recursion?
What is you know like?
What is a loop?
What is a map?
Like all these.
Like you know, coding has a lotof love if, then but like it'll

(45:32):
just be.
He's doing it in Spanish andhe'll understand in Spanish, but
the process with which he hasto like go do that stuff, like
go learn is, is much harder thansomeone here, right, like
you're doing the same thing.
There's a lot of like extrasteps.
So I see them, hey see himdoing this all the time.
He never complains about it,just you know that's what he
does.
But in Colombia, because theyyou know my girlfriend's family

(45:54):
they're not like like, they'relike middle-class, but they're
not like you know, they don'thave like a lot of money, right?
So basically, there isn't likea room for it doesn't matter how
really smart you are, right,the government is not gonna like
give you a Scholarship to go tosome college where you know,
just you can study and do allthis things.
So like it's hard for him to Togo.

(46:15):
He like he's looking aroundtrying to find like where he can
, where he can get some, youknow Some sponsorship where you
can get some, you know somescholarship, something like that
, to go study this stuff.
But it's hard, right.
And now I'm imagining, likethis kid comes to the US when
everything is like you can go tocollege, you know, and be a
shitty like lacrosse player andget a full ride right, yeah,
like, and he, like he's gonnahave no competition whatsoever.

(46:37):
So that's like, that's, that'sa once you see in other places,
like how, how much like dailylife is kind of a struggle, or
like the things that you take,oh, you take an education for
granted, right.
Then you're like, oh shit, likeI see why the US is, you know,
like is the land of opportunityin a sense.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
You know, I mean no, that makes sense.
That's what I've always said toif you want to develop
discipline, yeah, you do thingsthat require discipline.
Yeah, if you want to develop awork ethic, you have to do
things that require work.
Work ethic, yeah, sounds likethat's exactly what that kid's
doing.
It's probably extremely tedious, yep, to have to translate
everything into from Spanish,which you know.

(47:16):
You want to say, hey, I want tocreate an if-then statement
with a loop at the end.
Then you have to actually do itin English.
Yeah, but like you said, he's,he's facilitating a skill set
that we don't really needanymore.
Yep, you know what I mean.
Like, honestly, if you want tojust skate by here in the States
with Mediocre work.
Exactly, you know, you're nevergonna be affluent, but yeah, you

(47:39):
might be alright.
You know I mean you skatethrough.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
That's why it's attractive, right, like people
shouldn't have to work so hardto just get you know, to just
live, right.
Yeah, but in he's, like yousaid, he's very disciplined, but
it's almost as if the societyhas forced him to be disciplined
.
Right, if you want out, youhave to be that way, otherwise
you're not getting out, right.
So once you, once people doleave, like you'll see what

(48:02):
happens all time.
Like you know, an immigrantfrom India or from Latin America
or wherever like, comes to theUS Makes it really big and then
their kids are, like you know,just not doing, not at the same
level because they don't need tobe anymore Right, and they're
maybe there, like his grandkidsare not even close to, and
that's, it's a normal thing.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
They're just like normal, every, every other
American.
Yeah, yeah, that makes perfectsense.
That's a guy that I follow.
His name is Beidros Cooley andhe's from Eastern Europe
somewhere.
Okay, it calls it the immigrantedge and that's exactly what it
is.
It's the fact that, like it ishard just to get by Yep and
these former Soviet blockcountries, like it's hard just
to have a heated house, haveelectric, clean water and maybe,

(48:42):
if you're lucky, a car, yeah,right, that's hard to do here.
It's like you can get a jobtomorrow like that, have a car
in a place to rent with heat,and you honestly, you probably
don't even have to pay your rentbeing in rentals.
I'm here to tell you.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
You don't even have to pay your rent.
It's hard for me to throw youout.
You know you could be workingat McDonald's and Everybody at
McDonald's has a car.
They go home in a car.
They, you might, they might.
They may not have like theiPhone 14, but they're gonna
have the iPhone 10, like youknow it's.
They might have an Xbox intheir house, like that's, yeah,
that's just wild dude.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
I was down in Brazil this is a couple years ago, but
I remember this specifically.
It was a great trip.
I mean Ipanema Beach.
We stayed around there.
Beautiful dude, it was awesome.
I Remember.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Ipanema in like a Rio de Janeiro.
Yeah, yeah I was only in SaoPaulo, in Brazil.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Okay, hey, make the trip to Rio.
It was awesome.
But I remember we were drivingback to the airport to drive
home and I look out of thewindow.
We had a driver which we couldafford, mind you, which wasn't
that expensive down here but Iremember looking out the right
side of the window and it wasjust a village, yeah, of

(49:53):
corrugated tin houses underneatha bridge.
Mm-hmm, that's poverty, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
That's wild, the favelas, the communists, that's
it's wild dude.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
That's like here.
You know so.
And obviously I want everybodyto be affluent and live a life
of their dreams.
Yeah, great, I mean, I get that, but here it's like you're poor
.
You got an iPhone 6 and colorTV.
There it's like totallydifferent.
So if you have, if you manageto get out of that destitution,

(50:25):
you are one hard son of a bitch.
You have to be, you got skills,you have discipline, you're
willing to work yourself to thebone.
We don't need to do that here,yep, and it reminds me of a
quote.
So societies are born stoic butdie Epicurean.
What that means is societiesare grown, empires are built,
yeah, based off of duty andresponsibility.

(50:47):
They die based off of livinghow you want.
It's like the last what is it?
The last chapter of acts, andin Jerusalem there was no king,
so everybody did it as hepleases.
That's kind of and I hate to sayit, yeah, it's kind of where
we're at, dude, like duty,responsibility and things like
that.
We're kind of losing that alittle bit.
In my opinion you know I couldbe wrong they're still grinders

(51:09):
here.
Dude, this is America, americanindustry still top of the food
chain.
But it's like you see a lot ofthat kind of tilting where
people think they're owedsomething and it's like, dude,
you, you have the opportunityhere, yeah, and until you go
abroad or, in your case, untilyou've lived a different life,
you don't realize, like, dude,this is this is the land of

(51:31):
opportunity, man.
Like just driving back to theairport, that changed me forever
, completely just looking outand being like there's people
that live there, there'schildren that live there, yep,
women that live there, men thatlive there just scraping to get
by Totally different totallydifferent.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I was, you know, you know, charles over there, yeah,
yeah, okay, so it's nice.
Like he calls himself Charles,the Bronx, all the way, like the
Bronx is like from the favelain Portuguese, but like what
once you consider like that,like he's literally from that,
yes, come of the earth, like toput it that way right, yeah, the
tin, the tin, yeah the coregame in the house.

(52:11):
Yeah, exactly Right, yeah andlike now you see, like if a guy
makes it to that you know thebest in the UFC, you know he was
the champion.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
He's gonna be a one hard guy.
Yeah, he's like you.
Respect for it.
For that I also think, like youjust made the point about the
end in acts.
Right, the everyone does as heplease.
I think that's so true.
In a sense, there's a.
There's a quote from somescience fiction author I forget
the name, but it's.
It goes bad times create hardmen, or no bad times create

(52:45):
strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men andweak men create bad times.
Right, it's like a, it's a, itis a, it is a real cycle, and
then the men can be men andwomen too, just people.
But it's true, like, if youlook at problems in the US today
not not trying to, like youknow, negate the existence of

(53:06):
anyone, but like what are allthe stuff that's always on the
news?
right, it's like you knowwhether it's it's gender
identity stuff, whether it's,you know, some sort of racism,
like, like I'm trying to thinkof, some things are constantly,
oh, you know, college loans, orthere's a lot, of, a lot of like
issues, that Social issues,that their first world problem

(53:30):
exactly first world problem andhe transferred that to like
somewhere else, like, oh,whether, like, oh, you know,
whether sometimes like extremesorts of feminism or extreme
sorts of like no, in themanosphere, type stuff, right, I
see like a lot of this stuff ononline and you know a lot of
Fox news, I don't know likethese guys always talking about
it, but it doesn't even makesense in you talking the context
of Brazil, right, they're like,why are you talking about, like

(53:52):
you know, whether the bathroomshould be male or female or
whatever?
Like we're trying to like figureout there's an inequality here
that you know has to be dealtwith first before anyone's gonna
even know what's going on.
It's gonna be dealt with firstbefore anyone's gonna even talk
about those sorts of problems,right?
So yeah, just to your point,like we start hyper focusing on
issues that you know that theymight be issues to some people

(54:14):
but they're not as on the samescale as you know, the the
realistic or not the realistic,like the real I'm gonna use that
word concrete issues that youknow Pertained a day-to-day life
and in some other place.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
I agree.
I think that Exit a society isborn stoic and it dies up a
curian Yep, yep right.
And these first world problemscan only exist in the first
world.
That's why, when I think abouthere's another example climate
change.
Right, it's something that wein the West and Western Europe,
in the United States, we'rehyper focused on.
Yep, right, and maybe maybe weshould be okay, they don't care

(54:52):
about the climate a hundredyears from now in sub-Saharan
Africa?
Yeah, right, they're notworried about it.
So when we're talking aboutcertain things like how we don't
want to, you know, have anymore gas, natural gas, or we
don't want to have any more coal, what are we doing?
When we say that?
Who are we sacrificing?
When we say that, yeah, right,so it's, I'm not gonna tell

(55:16):
Developing nation, hey, you knowhow we used natural gas,
infrastructure exists and how weburn coal, and so we could
thrive and be excellent.
You can't do that.
Yeah, we think about theseproblems like like big global
problems, like Like climatechange.
I'm just gonna stay on that.

(55:37):
The best thing that you can dois get people as rich as
possible as fast as possible.
Yes, that's number one.
Yep, because you're not gonnafocus on hey, I'm gonna.
I got to burn this dung to keepmy house warm.
You're not like you know what.
Maybe this is someenvironmental factors, dude.

(55:58):
It's like we can't just thinkabout okay, these are issues for
us, so we have to apply thiseverywhere else on the world.
It's like maybe they needunique solutions.
That's why I have a problemwith like this whole World
economic forum and like thesebig brains that are trying to
basically move the globaleconomy in a way, and it's like

(56:18):
it comes down to a Conflict ofvisions.
To quote Thomas Noel, I Believethat there is no one person or
small group of people that canmake decisions Better than the
people living in thatcircumcertain 100% does that
make sense?
Yep, so there is nobody that issmart enough, that can do enough

(56:40):
Calculations to know exactlyhow to move an economy, and the
evidence of that is the SovietUnion.
How many people had to starve?
Maoist China?
How many people had to starvebefore we realized, like hey,
central control it doesn't work?
Yeah, it just doesn't work.
So these problems in thesedeveloping nations and and I'm

(57:01):
not an international specialistobviously we're just shooting
the shit at this point.
Yeah, but this seems like thenumber one thing that you can do
is allow these people to get asrich as possible, as fast as
possible.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
I'm gonna push back a little bit on what you said,
right?

Speaker 1 (57:15):
I want to hear what your, what your opinion is, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
You can look at particular examples, right.
So let's let's look atSingapore, dubai, right.
Very, very rich or countries,right?

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Singapore in the 60s was Third world country, yeah,
and then they had one particularleader who came into power and
he basically Became a dictatorbecause he was like, okay, like
we're gonna, I'm gonna do what'sbest for this country.
I know how to do it and I'm,once I get to power, like once I
, once I like get to power, andthen you know, complete what I.

(57:53):
What I said about doing likewe're this country is gonna look
different.
Right, it's gonna.
And Singapore now is it's notfirst world, it's like zero.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Exactly right, like some.
Some people make analogy.
They say, oh, like, if you gofrom Singapore, like the US, the
difference in the US andSingapore, even though the US is
so developed, but the US lookslike a, like a third world
country compared to, like, how,singapore, so laid out, right.
But I think, well, and thereason I bring it up is, I think
, naturally, developing world,the developing world, will Just

(58:25):
get better, right, but they needto be left alone.
That's the thing, right in in acountry, for instance, and here
is here's where I push back onsome.
Yeah, I mentioned already thatthe US is like the land of
opportunity here, right, mm-hmm,but it's at the expense of a
lot of countries.
So you look at, for instance,uh, the Israel, hamas thing,
right, yeah, that just happened,right.
Let's talk about the MiddleEast.

(58:45):
Look at Iran.
Iran, they're always chantingdeath to America, you know that
sort of thing, but it's not cuzthey're just Like they just woke
up one day and we're like, oh,we hate American movies, right?
Yeah, no, it's.
In the 60s, iran was a paradise,it was the.
You know, you just look atpictures that there were no
religious, and this is somethingI asked myself a long time ago,

(59:06):
I was like I've never met anIranian, that's, that's
religious, like, it's like athey're always such nice like
secular.
You know, it's Persia, thePersian Empire, like where we're
.
What happened here?
And then, you know, I this wasback in high school and then I
was talking to some professorsand they started like telling me
Exactly what happened and howthe US toppled the like.
They wanted the oil, like theBritish petroleum.

(59:28):
Right, iran want to nationalizeits own oil.
And they said, oh no, we're notgonna let that happen.
And they put their own.
They toppled the shop, puttheir own Guy in power.
And this guy, this puppet itwas a CIA coup.
This puppet basically crucified300,000 people in the street,
has torture squads, that sort ofthing.
And so Iran was in like a Like,how do you, how do you live

(59:51):
with that?
Right, so like.
And then they, they said, hey,we're gonna turn to whoever,
who's the only people that canget these guys out, right, and
it was the religious clerics.
And now they just don't want toleave power, right, yeah, so
like, there is a On the one side, we can sit across the ocean
and say, hey, this developingcountry, why are they like this,
but then it doesn't affect usbecause we're so far away in

(01:00:12):
this ocean, separated, right.
The same thing in Latin America, with Chile reggae, for
instance, at Pinochet, likeLinda me Johnson was out here
like literally, these beendeclassified, you can look this
up.
He was like make the Chileaneconomy scream because they're
not giving us the products wewant, right, and make sure it
doesn't come back to me, right,and they toppled that guy.
He murdered hundreds ofthousands, like and these are

(01:00:32):
like clear is Columbia isanother example, and you know
the Panama situation.
Like yeah, but like it's not,they're not developing because
it's something fundamentallywrong with them.
It's if you're a country thatis not powerful enough to like
stand on your own, like India,like you don't go screw with
India, right, but If you'reColumbia, if you're Chile,

(01:00:53):
whatever and every, you know tenyears, some guy comes in, you
know you have a, you have apresident.
It's a little, you know, notsuper pro us, not super pro
China, just like his own thing.
Someone just come in, you knowfucks with them, right, yeah, of
course.
Like how are they going todevelop if that's constantly?

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
happening.
Yes, I agree with you.
So, and that's a fair, fairpushback, and this is my
response to that.
You're right.
Hmm, the fact is thatgovernments exist abroad, right?
So you almost need yourgovernment to exist to Basically
have your back.
I understand that for sure.
In a perfect world, to behonest with you, in a very

(01:01:31):
perfect world, we would all belike Switzerland, where it's
like we're not fighting foreignwars, we're like sticking with
our own thing, we have a goodeconomy.
The unfortunate reality, livingin the practical application of
this, the unfortunate reality isthat Big countries bully small
countries.
It's just a fact.
So sometimes these smallcountries have to do things to
prevent the bully.

(01:01:51):
Yep, so what?
I would say the practicalapplication of something like
that.
You need just enough government, just enough to prevent
interference from othergovernment, but not so much that
it stifles the economy.
Yep, so, for instance, like Idon't see any system ever
created to create more wealthand opportunity than a free

(01:02:12):
market economy.
I've never seen anything betterthan that.
But you need to have some, andI hate it because I hate the
state, but you need to have astate that's gonna just let
Linda B Johnson come like, hey,let's bury these guys.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
That's the unfortunate reality is like dude
there are, and I don't want tocall the US a bad actor, because
I live here doing it's affordeda great lifestyle, bro, but at
the same time, like countriesoperate in their own interests
and we're gonna get deep now.
That's why people are ambitious,right, and what a free market

(01:02:49):
allows is for ambition to enricheverybody involved, because for
me to make a ton of money, foryou to make a ton of money, you
solved a problem and I hope youget super wealthy.
Dude, I do.
I love when people get wealthy,especially young dudes,
especially first generation.
Yeah, you come here and getwealthy, bro.
That's like a dream of mine forme to just continue to see that
.
But what you need to do iseither have ambition, be

(01:03:10):
beneficial to all, or haveambition counter ambition.
And that's why I think what doyou mean?
My ambition counter ambition.
So that's why we have separate,separate but equal branches of
government, because we know thatwe're not saints, bro.
The people that want to get tothe top are not typically the
people you want to be at the top.
The people who want the mostpower Are probably the people

(01:03:31):
you don't want to be in there tobe an honest.
But what our founding fathersrealized is like okay, look,
we're never gonna have saints inthese positions, but what we
can do is have three separatebranches where ambition counters
ambition, right?
So it's like this branch can'tget too powerful, because this
branch will hold them in check,and so will this branch.
So it's where you're basicallypitting the ambition of all the
parties involved, so they can'tjust hammer us or aggregate too

(01:03:55):
much power in one branch.
Yeah, so like I think thepresidency should be such that
it doesn't matter who's in power, instead of the presidency
being such that it doesn'tmatter who's in power.
I know that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
I see what you're trying to say.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
It's so it's such a powerful position now and dude.
That's why I think we're all ateach other's throat.
It's like worse than I've everseen.
It's crazy because it's likethe federal.
The federal government is sostrong that it actually does
impact when somebody votes, andit's wild how it's like that.
So like if you vote for Bidenand I vote for Trump, it
actually does have an impact onour life.

(01:04:30):
Yeah, not a huge one more likezoning and school boards and
stuff have a massive impact.
That's why it's wild thatpeople don't participate as much
, but it does have a Significantimpact on your life, on who
actually wins the presidency.
So I think that creates adivide.
Mm-hmm, I think it creates astructural divide in the country
, where it's like people are outof each other's throats because
the federal government is sostrong that it really matters if

(01:04:53):
you're a Democrat or Republican.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
It's crazy.
This is a, so I wouldn'tconsider this pushback.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
It's like a conversation.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
It's very interesting and I have some theories as to
as to why.
So, for instance, the US modelof government, like you're
saying, like that we haveIdeally, like a, from the
founding fathers perspective,it's a weak state, it's a weak
central government and you know,people are kind of let free to
do what they want as long asthey don't go, you know, harming
other people, right, that's,that's the whole idea.

(01:05:25):
It's really interesting to seeHistorically how that originated
.
So, and I don't think it's amodel that can be applied to
other countries.
So, so, if you look at whattypes of so democracy right, the
whole system of a democracy itcan.
In the US it was able to workone, because you know we have

(01:05:50):
Mexico and China like relativelyweak neighbors and then fish on
boat.
You know the other two sides,right, yeah, so basically from
the US, like, if you think of itas a cul-de-sac, it was this
cold, as I like people were ableto live there and Then kind of
go like, like what do they calllike manifest destiny?
Like Some settlers move, theyfind some house somewhere in the

(01:06:11):
wilderness.
They live there.
You know little house on theprairie.
You know they have their gun.
You know, occasionally someNative Americans like come
around and you know they mightcause some trouble, or you know,
maybe some wild animals orsomething like that was the
whole Settler ethos, right, yes,and the ideal for them was hey,
we don't want this, a centralgovernment, interfering in our
life, because our life is good,there's plenty of resources

(01:06:33):
around, like we, you knowthere's some gold in the rivers
like we want to take that, right, we want to.
If you go, if you go, look at aRussia or China or the Middle
East, you can't have a democracy.
There's been studies run thatwhat types of people, for
instance, if Russia were to havea democracy and these three

(01:06:54):
candidates were the options youhad, who would the people pick
democratically?
They would pick the strongman,they would pick the guy with the
Trumpish kind of tendencies,right, or Putin-esque tendencies
.
And it's because Russia is acountry with over thousands of
years, hasn't been invaded somany times.

(01:07:15):
Right, there's always like a,whether it was the Mongols,
whether it was, you know, theTartars, basically, whether it's
the Japanese, whether there'salways, you know, hitler,
napoleon, like, so, essentially,like any time they're given a
little bit of you know rest, soto speak, and they can focus on
domestic issues.
You know, 50 years, boom, likewe got to face another foreign

(01:07:35):
threat.
We need a strong guy, empowered, you know, essential authority,
right.
So for them, you know, in theperspective of Russia, china,
they won't be democratic, right?
They just that mentality islike sewn into their ethos,
right, we need some guy who candirect when the situation gets

(01:07:57):
bad, right.
And the same thing in othercountries, you know, in the
Middle East it's even worseproblem, right.
So in that situation democracydoesn't really what's the word
like democracy doesn't really.
There's another aspect.
So in the US, like as astructure, the US has always

(01:08:20):
kind of followed the UK in likea sense of rules, like rule
abiding society.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
British common law.
Exactly, exactly, right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
You can even see it like you.
If you're outside and you see abunch of Americans like trying
to get ice cream, whatever,they'll form a nice little line
and then, wait right, germanswon't do that right Like there's
no line, they're just going toget right.
South Americans won't do thatright.
So the like democracy needslike a very an ecosystem that's

(01:08:47):
very conducive for it to thrive.
Right, when you're in theMiddle East, and you know you've
got these fanatic groups,you've got these religious, like
ancient religious.
You know groups that want theirplace in power, but you can't
just let them have a vote.
You know like, oh, vote forlike.
Of course, you know what'sgoing to happen, right.
Like it's like a very specificset of.

(01:09:07):
If you have a democracy, it hasto be very tailored to to that
particular country, right?
I'm just saying, like, whenyou're, you're making your
comments on central government.
I think it's a very valid usecase for the US, but it's harder
to see that working in a lot ofother countries, if that makes
sense.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Yes, there's two things that I would need to
address with that.
The first one is when I was inSwitzerland World-class hiking,
it was beautiful, I loved it.
The most surprising thing,though, were the cities.
So I was in Geneva, lucerne,zurich I was all over that
country.
I couldn't find a cigarettebutt on the street Not one.
I couldn't find a singlehomeless person Not one.

(01:09:48):
You go down to Pittsburghthere's a lot of homeless people
.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
There's trash everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
You're tripping over people trying to get to the
parking garage.
So I thought I'm like what isthe difference here?
Why is it that like the city'shere safe?
We're walking around at 8.30 atnight trying to buy chocolate
in a foreign land and I neverfelt safer.
There's kids out on a scooter.
Like it's 8.30 at night.
I would never let a kid out ina scooter in Pittsburgh at 8.30
at night.
And it comes down to exactlywhat you're saying there's a

(01:10:17):
cultural difference, there's ageographical difference and, as
a result of the geographicaldifference, there's a.
There's a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
The individualism aspect.
Right, the individual aspect,like you just mentioned, is
great for companies.
It's great for I come here andI come to the US.
I don't go to Switzerland toget rich, right.
I come to the US and I'm like,hey, I'm going to take advantage
of all the resources here andthen I'll go live in Switzerland
, right, but like that's likethey are way more.
You know what's collectivist,like.
In a sense, you know they'renot as there's a pride there,

(01:10:44):
dude for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Like we were screwing up, throwing trash in the wrong
can.
This motherfucker comes up,it's like no, no, no, we don't
do it like this, like real, likepissed, and I'm like I respect
the shit out of that, because inthe city you'll have somebody
dump a bottle of liquor outsideand shit on the sidewalk and
keep walking and everyone's likeyeah, that's normal.
So okay, this is.
I agree with you.
The American model doesn'tnecessarily have to work

(01:11:07):
everywhere, and I don't think itcan.
Right, I think there's culturaldifferences that are so inter,
so involved in that individual,that we think that we can just
pick up the American system anddrop it somewhere and it's going
to work.
I don't believe that.
That's why and this is going tobe a difficult, I hope I
explained this right that's whyfederalism in the United States

(01:11:28):
made so much sense, becausethere's a collection of
different states where differentpeople settled, with different
cultures that settled there.
So some states might be worseoff than other states in some
respects, better off in otherrespects.
So you had a medley ofdifferent states to choose from.
So there was just enoughfederal government that I think

(01:11:49):
eventually they instituted acommon currency.
That made business a little biteasier.
There was a You're talking inthe US, right, yeah, in the US,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there was like certain therewas enough federal government
to hold those states together,but not as much that it didn't
matter what state you lived in.
So I don't necessarily thinkthat the American model is going

(01:12:11):
to work everywhere.
The only thing that I can saydefinitively in the opinion that
I hold is that each country isgoing to have a certain amount
of government that allows thatcountry to flourish, but I
believe that it needs to be theminimal dose of government that
still maximizes freedom, becauseI do believe human freedom and

(01:12:34):
economic freedom is the numberone way to create opportunity,
to create products, to bringpeople out of $8,000 a year to
what's the average American make?
Like $50,000?
Yeah, like it's like a six.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
Even compared to Europe, that's like double.
Yeah, like it's like a six-exgrowth, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
So I agree with you the American model doesn't
necessarily work everywhere.
We tried it in Afghanistan,dude.
That thing collapsed in aheartbeat as soon as we left.
It was like done, no moreAmerican model, so it's not
necessarily going to work.
I just hope that and this mightbe a pipe dream I just hope
that there's enough individualsin these countries to say I want

(01:13:12):
to use the minimal amount ofgovernment to preserve what I
think is right, but maximize theopportunity here for us to
actually get out of thissituation.
I have a buddy that's in themilitary.
He's like dude.
I was in Afghanistan threedifferent times.
They're 300 years in the past.
He's like that's never whatwe're trying to do.
There is never, ever going towork.
He said that years before weever pulled out.
He's like, it's never going towork.

(01:13:33):
I just would like to see Like,when you look at China, right,
there is nothing better forChina than when they started to
introduce more free marketopportunities there.
Now it's not free market, bro.
Like, make no mistake, youdon't own anything there, but
they use free market systems toallow people to get wealthy.
Now the state can take yourshit in a heartbeat.

(01:13:54):
I wish that weren't the case andI feel bad for those billion
people over there.
But at the same time, they evenrecognize like wait a second.
We need to allow some freemarket principles in order for
these people to actually get outof the destitution, like my
goal with free market economics.
Yes, I want to make a shit pileof money, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
You do too, bro.
That's what we do.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
We're ambitious guys, we're young guys, but more than
just that.
I really do believe that is thenumber one way to take people
out of poverty.
That's my personal opinion.
That's just based off of whatI've read.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
To summarize what you're saying.
And it makes sense.
It's for any country.
The model can be applied to anycountry.
The specifics are what'sdifferent, right, but basically
any country will thrive ifthere's a path to success for
any citizen in that country.
If there's no, if any person inthat country can come up with

(01:14:47):
an idea and go create their ownbusiness, that's giving back to
the country, if that's something, that's.
And get rich, right.
Obviously, if there's something,if there's some hindrance there
, that's where you see theproblem.
And then this is completelyobvious in Colombia, in Brazil,
is actually a lot better.
But Argentina, all thesecountries like India, that is

(01:15:09):
very hard, right.
There is no social mobility.
People want the average personwants to be mobile, they want to
be, they want to have.
You know, maybe not likeeveryone, maybe not everyone, is
going to start a business andget rich, but at least have
enough money to send your kidsto a good school, to just live
normally, right, and that'ssomething that these countries
don't afford the average personbecause there's so much

(01:15:32):
corruption up top right.
So I'll use Colombian as anexample.
Colombia has a president.
This is the case with a lot ofcountries, right?
The most of the countries inthe world.
Colombia has a president rightnow.
He is a bit on the left rightand it makes sense in Colombia
because there's so many.
Like, socialism has a use casewhen there's so many poor people
.
Right, you can't just be like,oh, capitalist, why are you guys

(01:15:53):
so poor?
You were born in the favela.
Okay, screw you like, work yourway up.
No, they need some sort of help.
Right In the past, I think it'sthe past 30 years, three
Colombian presidents have beenassassinated for trying to push
more social reform.
And the reality is it's notbecause the people aren't
assassinating, the people loveit, the people that actually

(01:16:15):
rule the country.
There's several families,there's like five or six
families that actually ruleColombia, and this is the same
with Peru, ecuador.
There's like several, basicallyoligarchs, right, and you do
something that screws with themoney.
Like, one oligarch family willown all the media channels.
Another oligarch will own allthe produce.
So, like you see a supermarket,there's like three or four

(01:16:39):
brands of supermarkets, allowned by the same family.
You try to make your ownsupermarket chain.
You try to make your own mediachannel, do your own news, get a
bullet in the head, right.
So that's the law behind the law, right, it's very hard for a
government.
It's the deep state, exactlyright, it is exactly what it is
right.
In the US it's less obvious,but it's there.

(01:17:01):
Right, it's very hard for, like, colombia will have a
parliament, you know it has itssenate and its you know Congress
and the bodies of government,but that's not really who
controls things, right, likethat's just the front to be,
like, okay, we're democratic,but if you do something that
actually wants, you actuallywant to change something, bad

(01:17:23):
things are going to happen.
Right, so that series of it hasto change.
Like all these countries,whether it's Most countries in
Latin America, you know, theMiddle East is another example,
right, they're rich.
But who controls all the oil?
Right, it's the family at thetop, the Saudi family in Saudi
Arabia.
Right, it's not the regularpeople that are.
They might sprinkle a littledust you know gold dust every

(01:17:45):
once in a while, right, but allthat oil is just in one family,
right, it's so much wealth.
How are you gonna?
It's not like we don't have thegoverning body.
We need votes.
It's not that right, it's youhave to.
Those people will not give uppower easily, right, and if they
will.
It'll be a violent, violentoverthrow of power, which maybe
should happen, but that's theblocker to a lot of developing

(01:18:10):
countries to actually develop.
That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
No, it makes perfect sense, because when the state is
powerful, it can be co-optedand used in a way for the person
who co-opted Exactly.
That's why it's again.
I just think there needs to beenough state to safeguard
certain inalienable rights andto safeguard against foreign
invaders or foreign countries orA country that can definitely

(01:18:35):
take advantage of you, but notso much that it stifles that
economic mobility, because, likeyou said, the Saudi government
is basically run by thewealthiest people, kind of in
our country too, man, oh yeahyeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Yeah, I mean not as blatant.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
You can get these outsiders inand there's a ton of economic
mobility here.
But I think you're right,there's like it's what some
people call the deep state orthe shadow government or the
oligarchy, whatever you want tocall it where it's like big
money that co-opt the governmentthat basically put policies in
place that allow them to stay ontop.

(01:19:11):
Bro, I mean, think about howmuch money these big pharma puts
into politics every year.
You know there's two countriesthat allow pharmaceutical
companies to market directly tothe consumer.
We're one of them.
Yeah, bro, they're so powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Powerful as hell.
Speaking of drugs and this sortof pharma, look at the FDA.
The food here in the US is theworst food in the world.
It's like these canned shitthat you get at stores boxed
macaroni.
Every drink juice.
You could buy a bottle of juice.
It has like three times thesugar intake, the normal sugar

(01:19:50):
intake for a week for one person.
These things are banned inLatin America.
These things are banned inEurope.
If you want to do even like youwant to get a yogurt or
something healthy and let's sayyou're in Colombia or in Brazil,
whatever, there's like a bigsticker on the yogurt and it'll
say too much sugar, too muchsalt, like it's big black label,

(01:20:10):
right?
Yeah, here it's just you knowthat's too little sugar.
But the FDA, which issupposedly supposed to be doing
good for the consumer right, isnot doing anything.
It's just clearly an instanceof corruption, right?
Yes, switzerland hasn't let inany of these, like probably,
like I'd say, 50% or more ofthese food products that we

(01:20:32):
consume here on a regular basis.
Definitely Banned.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
Dude, and it was weird being in Switzerland,
nobody was like jacked, butnobody was fat, except for the
Americans.
Honesty God like I swear to God, we would be hiking or we'd be
in a city or something, and thenyou'd hear somebody like yell
in English, just because that'show we are as Americans, and he
would be fat bro, that's justhow it was like down in Rio de.
Janeiro too.
Like I'm walking on the beach,I'm like everybody's in shape.

(01:20:59):
There's like Ipanema Beachyou're running across.
I mean it's just awesome, butthen like there'd be like a fat
guy and he would be American,bro, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
I mean, the portion size is like here you can get a,
you know, like a large burgerin.
You go to McDonald's in Braziland a large burger is like
between small and medium here,you know, that's the one that no
one gets.
Like everyone gets at least amedium.
So it's like like what theobviously like people are going
to get fat, right.
Yeah, even shirt sizes.

(01:21:30):
Man, I was coming here like I'mdepending on the shirt, like I
usually be a medium, but herethere's like medium large and
then all these sizes thatthere's not.
There's like XL, xxxl, yeah,that's really big.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
That's when we were down in Rio de Janeiro and
remember we went to a restaurant.
We had a guy that was our guidethrough connection Rio.
That's when I was training, Iwas fighting.
We were down there and we satat the first restaurant.
I was like dude, I'm starving.
He knows a nine hour flight orwhatever it was.
We sit down and I asked himlike hey, where's the burger?
He tells me and I try to orderit the best I can.

(01:22:05):
Probably got ripped off, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
They were just like oh, that'll be a hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Hey, oscar, they bring the burger and I'm like
where's the rest of it?
Yeah, it was just the burger.
I'm expecting a fountain drink,french fries, everything else,
dude, it is totally different.
That was another big cultureshock.
When I go international it'slike, bro, I'm going to starve,
you don't though you get moreburgers, exactly Like I am going

(01:22:29):
to starve, but cool man.
Other than that, dude, I justwanted to sit down and talk to
you about your business, get anunderstanding of you know what
that product looks like, how youkind of developed that idea and
I'm glad we're able to shootthe shit about like cultural
stuff too.
Other than that, what's thecompany called?
What's the next stage?

(01:22:49):
If we're interested and youknow learning more about it, how
can we?

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
So the company is called Rolampago and you can go
to the website.
So Rolampagocash, that's thewebsite.
Also, the LinkedIn is there.
So that's for now In terms ofan actual use case.
If you ever go to Latin America,it's going to be something that
you want to, you want in yourback pocket.
So, especially in Colombia,that's our main use case.
You got to make any paymentanywhere.

(01:23:16):
Ask someone hey, you know, doyou have Rolampago?
If they don't tell them todownload it and you can make
your payment there, like ittakes, you know, they don't even
need to do anything in the app,they just download it and they
can have, like receive a minimumamount of money without you
know filling out all theregistration and stuff.
So it's 30 seconds.
They'll make your life a loteasier.
So, in terms of, in terms oflike where we want to be in a

(01:23:38):
year, so we want to like havethis payments market, this like
the payments market between theUS and Colombia, the US and
Brazil.
Us, you know, payouts, likewhether it's for payouts,
whether it's imports, exports, alot of, whatever reason, people
are making payments or sendingmoney down there, right, we want
to control that or at leastlike take a giant share out of

(01:24:00):
that, that market right In thenext year in Colombia, and we're
we're eyeing probably Mexico orArgentina next, and I think
we're in a good position interms of like just market
knowledge and focus on thoseparticular markets and like the
value add that we provide right.
So that's going to, yeah,that's going to be the the, the

(01:24:23):
goal for the next one or twoyears.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
Perfect, awesome.
Man.
Well, I hear your phone goingoff.
Mine's been going off too, solet's wrap this thing up.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
For sure, thanks, alex.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Go on three, one, two , three.
Okay, it's a wrap.

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