January 20, 2025 • 51 mins
This episode explores the challenges of recording a podcast without one of the main hosts, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and teamwork. It delves into the concept of golden handcuffs, discussing how financial incentives can make employees feel trapped in unsatisfactory jobs while providing practical advice on reassessing career goals and personal satisfaction.
• Discussing the dynamics of a podcast without one host
• Sharing a feel-good success story from Arizona Tea
• Defining golden handcuffs and their implications in the workplace
• Examining various types of financial incentives tied to employment
• Analyzing the impact of stock compensation on job retention
• Exploring the significance of self-realization and job satisfaction
• Offering insights into planning for career changes and financial freedom
• Highlighting the importance of aligning work with personal goals
Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Click/Tap HERE for everything Corporate Strategy
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
Don't forget ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ it helps!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Craig.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
He's back.
Open your mind, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm a little scared.
That was the first time I haveever opened the door to the
dungeon and let him in.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, yeah.
You now have to send that toseven people, or else he will
kill you in a week.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Oh, my goodness, I forgot about those text threads
and emails I used to go out like.
You must send this to sevenfriends, otherwise your house
will burn down.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, I don't know how anybody ever believed any of
that stuff.
But hey, what are you going todo, man?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
that was like guerrilla marketing at its
finest.
Hey, so um the the topic todayis how to call in sick to your
own podcast.
That is absolutely.
I mean, yeah, we had a call out.
This is weird.
We've got a sub.
This is the first time we haveever done an episode on this
show without Bruce.
(00:56):
It's Clark and Alex, alex, atotally different style, and I
don't know how this is going togo.
It could be mess.
It could be awesome.
Maybe we'll just fire him afterthis.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm surprised he's not like lurking behind a
bush, kind of looking to see howthings are going.
Uh, so, his uh.
So for those that don't know,his, uh, bruce's voice is is
struggling.
He's on the struggle bus.
As far as illness goes, heshould be fine, no problems,
within a couple of days, but fornow he is in no condition to
record a podcast, much lessspeak with anyone, and so that
(01:33):
is why I'm here subbing in.
So here we go.
Uh oh, did you want to do theofficial intro?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I guess should we intro and I guess we're gonna
just say our names.
It's gonna sound weird, but wegot to do it.
It's the only right thing.
It it's the only right thing todo.
It's the only right thing to do.
Welcome to Corporate Strategy.
The podcast that comes in emailit's Clark and Alex.
That's not right.
Something just fell wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I just don't like it.
It just doesn't feel right.
It's very uneasy yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And we opened the dungeon to Craig on our own,
without Bruce's supervision.
Yeah, this could be a completenightmare, but I think it's
going to be fine.
I think it's going to be justfine, and we don't know that
he'll get his voice back, sothis could just be a new age for
us, where it's no more Bruce.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I mean he shouldn't have crossed that ferry in the
deep woods and so that's his ownfault.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
He should have shared our podcast seven times,
otherwise he could have lost hisvoice.
That was the text, all right.
So, yeah, we are doing anunusual podcast today, but we're
really excited about it.
We have capitalistcorrespondent Alex Restrepo
coming in to join us once againfor the first time in 2025.
First thing we have to do is aquick vibe check.
(02:44):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I am fantastic.
Earlier this morning I went outand broken a new pickleball
paddle and it is.
Oh my gosh, it was so crisp theway it struck.
True, it was a thing of beauty.
I felt really really good outthere, and then I had a pretty
productive day at work, gettingready for what's going to be a
busy day Well, sorry, busy weekand so it's just been a really
(03:08):
good day.
Man, I feel great.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I love to hear it.
You are so dedicated topickleball I did not realize you
went before work on a Mondaymorning.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Sometimes, not every time, but yeah, I try to play
three times a week if I can.
It's just so much fun.
It's really infectious.
It gets in your blood.
If you ever try it out, that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm totally going to have to hit you up one of these
times because we don't live toofar from each other and I want
to try some pickleball.
I've never played, so I don'tknow the euphoria of breaking in
a new pickleball paddle, but Iwill soon.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It's all good.
I'm happy to play youleft-handed and or just bring it
down to your level.
I just enjoy playing.
It doesn't have to be withanybody in particular.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So I'm down.
Awesome, yeah, totally lookingforward to that.
Yeah, what is my vibe check?
How am I feeling today?
I actually had a similar day asyou.
I started off the day withbacon.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So I mean that kind of set, the whole vibe for the
whole entire day.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Did you make like cookies or like scones?
No, it was bacon and eggs, ryeand bacon grease.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
You ever done that before?
Oh boy, have I Hell, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Your arteries are hating it, but it tasted so good
.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I started with that.
That's a myth about thearteries.
What?
The arteries you think so it'sbig sugar man, that's what
causes bad cholesterol.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Fair enough.
I mean, I think, to quote averb we used in our last podcast
episode it just helps thingsfall right out.
That's what baby goose does.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh, let's not revisit that one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, it's a little too soon.
Maybe a trigger warning for thepeople before we do that in the
future.
Anyways, productive day.
I actually had this week fullyplanned out in terms of tasks
that I need to do every day, interms of everything on my
calendar that needed to be inplace, so I had the right
priorities and I was able to getthrough all of my priorities
today.
So my task list is clear, whichis like the best feeling in the
(05:03):
world.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Okay, so my task list is clear, which is like the
best feeling in the world.
Oh, absolutely, it completelyis.
You always love that feeling ofaccomplishment, right and
having a clean, fresh start fromthe next day.
It's the best.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
No debt from previous days or weeks Absolutely the
best.
Love it All.
Right.
So you need to tell me and tellthe people your tips.
Do you write everything down?
Do you have a list going intothe day or do you, big brain
Alex, remember everything andyou just know what you need to
get through?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I am not the paragon to be talking about
self-organization.
I kind of even though I don'tlike jazz I kind of approach
work like jazz, but I basicallythere was a.
There was a friend of ours, acoworker and a friend this guy,
brian, that I worked with at onepoint.
He would say stay confused washis catchphrase, and I think he
(05:53):
actually listens to this podcast, at least sometimes, and that
stay confused mantra helpsbecause you see a lot of people
stress out and those people arenot staying confused and so stay
confused just basically meansgo loosey, goosey, go with the
flow.
What I do is I try to do my bestto make sure everything is
properly on my calendar,including stuff that I'm doing
(06:14):
for myself, right?
So if I'm doing a task andthere's actually multiple
reasons to do that If you workfor a big corporation, there's a
decent chance they have AIchecking in on your productivity
and one of the things they dois they crawl your calendar and
so highly recommend, if you'redoing work, put it on your
calendar so that it shows up asthings you're doing in work.
(06:35):
But for me it helps keep my dayorganized.
It's just making sure I havesomething on my calendar for
everything.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So your task list basically is your calendar and
you prioritize your calendar towhatever needs to be at the top
for that week.
That's exactly correct.
Yes, yeah, makes sense and thatmakes it really simple too.
It's like if your calendarreflects your task list, then
you should be good to go.
I think where I always get hungup is the longer term projects
that you know you need a fewweeks of things happening at
(07:03):
certain times.
That's where the calendar kindof falls apart for me, because I
lose track of where all theprojects are.
I've tried color coding, I'vetried, you know, other ways and
other task management systems,and I ended up using a tool
called Monday to do all myorganization for those bigger
things, because it's just sohard to coordinate at my
calendar.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
This podcast brought to you by Monday productivity
tool for those of you strugglingto keep your projects in order.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
We are not sponsored.
That was a really goodadvertisement.
Well, you said you had a bunchof stuff to talk about and I
don't even know where this isgoing, just to be clear for
everybody.
So I'm going to just CYA myselfright now to say I have no idea
what we're going to talk about,but I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
This is a throwback to about like a year ago.
Like a Clark from about a yearago was like this, where you
would show up and it would be agrab bag, right.
Ooh, what am I going to walkinto today, who knows?
Right, I remember listening tothose podcasts and that energy.
It had a good vibe though theenergy there, so hopefully this
will be similar.
No, the first thing I wanted totalk about was actually just a
(08:09):
video I posted in the Discordabout Arizona the company, the
Arizona Tea Company Tea.
As the capitalist correspondentI just figured, it made sense to
highlight a feel-good story fora change.
There's so much doom and gloomin the capitalist corporal world
out there that I thought if youcome across a good story, you
(08:32):
should share it.
And so Arizona.
So the company was founded inthe early 90s by a dude in New
York, my hometown.
I'm originally from New YorkCity, he was from Brooklyn, I
was from Queens.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's only the 90s.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, 92.
Are you serious?
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I literally thought this was a company that's at
least 100 years old at thispoint.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
No, no, arizona.
Arizona actually came aboutbecause this dude saw the
Snapple company doing well andthought, hey, I could do that.
I could do tea right, but I'mgoing to do it a little
different.
And so his inspiration for thecans came from the fact that he
had been a beer distributor.
And so he saw Tallboy Cans ofBeer and thought I could do that
(09:16):
right.
And so that was the difference.
But I'll give you an example,one of the snippets they do at
the very beginning of the videoand I posted this in podcast,
books, documentaries, channel inour discord, um, which, as per
usual, there'll be a way to getto the discord later on in the
show, but, um, anyway, at thebeginning of the video he talks
about like there's an interview,right, and someone asks him hey
(09:37):
, why, uh, why 99 cents?
Why don't you charge more money?
And his response is we'rereally successful, so we're good
.
And then, if you watch the restof the video, that's the vibe
throughout the whole thing.
And I looked them up.
I looked up a lot of the statson this guy and he has a net
worth of like $6 billion.
He himself, individually, he'sa $6 billion man.
(09:57):
Now the price of Arizona hasnot gone up since its inception,
that 99 cent can.
And so, apparently, accordingto quote, unquote nominal
inflation, which I'm always like, it's probably incorrect,
because it seems like inflationis always calculated under what
it really is in terms of thereal world.
But they're saying that thatshould be at least $2.50 by now
(10:21):
if it kept up with inflation.
And so what he did was, numberone, he worked on efficiencies
behind the scenes, right, interms of cutting the cost of
production.
And then, number two, he justdidn't hire people.
He didn't need to hire, right,like he didn't bloat the company
unnecessarily.
It's a privately held company.
He doesn't have to reportquarterly earnings or any of
(10:42):
that stuff, right?
He's only answerable to himselfand his sons, who he did hire,
but his sons are, like, activeparticipants in the success of
the company in terms of the workthey're doing.
At one point someone asked himhow big his marketing company
was, because they seem to bedoing pretty well in marketing,
and he responded it's big.
And the guy said well, how big?
And he said it's about six footeight, because he's six foot
(11:04):
eight and he was the marketingdepartment, right?
So if I don't know if you got achance to watch the video, but
it's just the vibe of the wholething.
The guy just has the bestattitude and it just shows you
that you can have a company atbillion dollar scale that can
still be a force for good in theworld.
He also treats his employeesreally well, so it's all good.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I love the vibes that you're sharing.
I mean, you can shame me, Ihave not watched it yet, but I
will.
I will shortly after this.
I'm just way behind on thediscord in the first two weeks
of the new year.
That's awesome, though itreminds me a lot of the like
Costco hotdog thing of yeah, wedon't care that it's a dollar
2525 and we're operating at aloss.
It's about the principles ofwhat we stand for and we're
(11:48):
going to figure out how to makeit work for our customers, which
I love.
I think that's such a good idea.
So 6 billion, is it onlyArizona?
Is that his only brand?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah Well, I mean to be fair.
Arizona as a brand has expandedbeyond just tea and I learned
that watching the video.
I didn't know, and this also isnot an advertisement for
Arizona.
I just respect the, the, theway the dude carried himself
throughout the entire video,like the, the concept of like I,
I have a really good life.
Why do I need more?
(12:18):
And I just wish more peopleremembered that you know Right,
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, that's incredible.
I love that and yeah, Iremember there there being a lot
of like yeah, is he even makingmoney or the operating at a
loss?
So are they making money onthose Arizona teas?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So yeah, actually they are.
So even on the 99 cent cansthey are making money, and the
way they're making money.
So they did they did a lot ofclever stuff.
One example is they were ableto re-engineer the cans to use
less aluminum, which saved thema ton of money.
And so there's a ton of littleexamples like that so they've
just grown in terms ofefficiency and productivity.
(12:54):
Instead of raising prices,they've increased how productive
they are, and that's where theprofits are coming from.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That's super cool.
Yeah, I know, with just therise of the cost of inflation
it's like that alone and thecost of aluminum probably has
made it really hard to make aprofit.
But if you focus on theefficiencies and you slim down
your team to only the MVP groupthat you need, you can probably
still operate at some sort ofmargin.
(13:25):
Maybe it's slim, but still Imean that's incredible that
they're making money on that atall, just given the cost of
everything else.
It's funny If you guys checkout the Discord there is a link.
Just scroll down the link tree.
As Alex referred to earlier,there's a lot of YouTube videos
that you post from a YouTubechannel called how Money Works
and it's a great channel becausethey just published a new video
(13:45):
about middlemen and how it'sbeen like the golden age of
middlemen for the last I don'teven know how long I said like
30 years or something like thatand technology has basically
became the ultimate middlemanbetween all these different
companies and I think theconcept that we're talking about
here is like they probably arecutting out a lot of middlemen
and going directly to the sourceand figured out those
efficiencies where they're ableto still operate the costs let's
(14:08):
say the COGS, in a way thatthey can keep some sort of
margin in the positive, which issuper impressive.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yep yeah.
So just a feel-good story tostart.
But, actually, it does dovetailinto what is going to be the
real topic, and it's actually aresponse to something that
somebody asked for in theDiscord, right?
So those topic submittals thathappen in the Discord a couple
of weeks, like it may even be acouple of months.
Now, back, jojo had asked forhow to deal with golden
(14:38):
handcuffs, and so this isactually, I think, a related
topic in a sense.
Right, but we were talkingabout knowing when enough is
enough, right, and so that'skind of related, and I'll talk
about that in a second.
Given that we're introducing aterm golden handcuffs it
probably makes sense to explainwhat that concept is for folks
(15:00):
that are either new to thecorporal world or maybe other
countries that are listeningthat may not use that term.
So golden handcuffs issomething that can happen to you
.
If you're really good at yourjob and you're really lucky, a
company could value youSurprisingly.
Yes, even in today's world,even in 2025, companies can
identify true talent at timesand choose to try to reward them
(15:23):
in a way that helps keep themRight, and so that's the key
component of this is that anygolden handcuff mechanic,
there's a time vesting aspect toit, and the whole purpose is to
keep you working at the companythat you're at, hopefully keep
you happy, right?
And so there are a couple ofdifferent vehicles that can be
(15:45):
used for this.
I know of at least two that I'vepersonally experienced and or
seen from others.
One is RSUs, which arerestricted stock units, which
will have different conditions,and so I've received RSUs at
different times, and basicallywhat it means is hey, we're
(16:05):
going to give you a block ofstock, however much it is, let's
say it's a thousand shares ofstock of a company, right that's
?
And in order to be able tooffer rsus, the company has to
be public or intending to gopublic, um, and so those rsus
will be worth nothing if thecompany does not go public, um,
although they can be worthsomething if the company gets
acquired.
But anyway, anyway, it's awhole mess, but regardless, to
(16:27):
simplify it, the idea is here'sa block of stocks, let's say a
thousand, and it's going toinvest over four years, and so
if you stick around for one year, we're going to give you 250
shares, that's one quarter ofthe amount, and then there could
be different vesting schedulesafter that.
As an example, I have some RSUsright now and they had a
(16:48):
one-year cliff.
And then it's three monthsEvery quarter.
Basically I get a small amountuntil it trues up to the vesting
schedule that was set up.
So in the example that I gaveof 1,000 shares over four years,
it could be yearly that itvests, or it could be quarterly
or whatever, and they give yousome subsection of 250 every
(17:10):
quarter.
Whatever 250 divided by fourwould be, that's how much they
would give you.
So those are different examples, but that's RSUs.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Mine's actually very similar, just to touch on my
aspect of it, and actually it'sinteresting that you say this.
Yeah, it's about retention.
I have RSUs as well and I'mpart of a public company, so
luckily those RSUs areimmediately valuable to me so I
could immediately choose afterthose vests, I could immediately
sell if I wanted to, and it'sessentially just free money, and
(17:37):
mine do distribute quarterly, Ibelieve so I get a certain
vesture over the next threeyears.
I think that I have remainingfor the subsequent amount, and
so it works really well in thatregard.
I mean, to me what my companyoffers isn't huge, so it's not
like massive enough for me tohave golden handcuffs because of
that.
But there's a lot of cases whereif you're a startup and you're
(18:00):
a private company, they are kindof just this magical.
This is really interesting withme.
There's these magical stockoptions that you have that mean
nothing because you're notpublicly traded, but they're
vested on the promise that onceyou sell or once the company
goes public, you will then haveaccess to all of those shares.
And so it's how a lot of thebigger technology companies in
the past have made millionairesout of the founding members
(18:22):
because they have all thisequity in the company via those
shares and they're essentiallyable to cash those out at the
time the company sells or goespublic.
Another example of that if youown your own company and then
you sell your own company, theycould pay you to stay on for a
series of years.
In one year they'll pay you outX amount.
In two years they'll pay youout Y amount in order to retain
(18:45):
your knowledge or onboard thenew team or transition it to the
new company.
So there's a lot of ways oftrying to retain the people for
different purposes, at bothpublic companies, private
companies and also when you sellcompanies of your own.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And that was the second type.
So, first of all, in terms ofwhat you were talking about,
about the promise of futurevalue, I actually experienced
that at my current company.
My current company IPO'd inApril of last year, oh nice.
So I was hired on prior to theIPO.
I'd been at the company for twoand a half years by the time we
IPO'd and so, yeah, so I got toexperience that and it's pretty
(19:22):
awesome.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I, yeah, so I got to experience that and it's pretty
awesome.
Yeah, I've heard that.
I've heard of like, after acompany goes public, a lot of
people quit that day and thendrive off in Ferraris just
because they made millions,potentially because of how long
they've been in the company withthat promise.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I have no desire to quit.
I actually like my companyquite a bit, but you could right
yeah, absolutely.
And then the second thing yousaid was the second type of
handcuff that I was going totalk about, which is some sort
of cash incentive.
I've heard it called it depends, right, there's long-term cash
incentive and then there'll belike short-term cash incentives.
Would be like things like yousaid, like, let's say, you're
(19:55):
being made redundant but theywant you to train your
replacements.
They'll give you a pretty heftybonus if you work through the
end of your period, and soyou're incentivized to basically
stick it out until the end.
So those are different types ofcash incentives.
So those are the two primarytypes of golden handcuffs, and
again, not everybody ever getsaccess to these, but if you're
(20:17):
fortunate enough to be a highlyvalued individual, then you're
going to get access to these.
Right, I will say that mycompany, before the IPO I think
everybody that got hired beforethe IPO had some amount of
shares.
I don't remember what theamount was or anything like that
for everybody, but I thinkeverybody had some.
(20:39):
And so joining a pre-IPOcompany can be risky if that's
part of what you're looking atas your compensation is the
stock payout of what it will bewhen you go public.
There's a risk there becauseyour company may never go public
.
There's a chance of that, right.
Plenty of companies fail RightTo actually go public and plenty
of companies go out of business, right.
So that can happen, right.
(21:01):
I'm not saying it will happento the company you're working
for.
I'm just saying you have toweigh all of those risks
together.
I was lucky that for me thestock was just a cherry on top.
I was happy with mycompensation and it happened to
be a really nice thing thathappened to me, but I didn't
necessarily need it, right?
Yeah.
So, I would approach it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's great, yeah, and to your point,
just to say it another way, it'sas you're getting offers, you
might get promises from privatecompanies of all this equity in
the company or stock options and, like we're talking about here,
they may mean nothing If thecompany goes under, if they go
bankrupt, if they end up notselling, if they fail.
You don't want to necessarilyhinge all of your decision
(21:43):
making on those future options,which may or may not happen.
It's a risk and I think that'sa little bit of what you wanted
to talk about with goldenhandcuffs is like everything in
your decision making is kind oftying into that concept of you
can get these golden handcuffson you and you can feel locked
in because of that.
I mean, I can tell you even inmy own company, to your point
(22:04):
about valuing hard workers andpeople who bring value to the
company.
I do feel like my company'sdone a pretty great job
recognizing me.
From six years ago when Ijoined, to now, I've doubled the
salary that I started at, andso I think that's pretty good
recognition of not only have Igotten promoted, but they've
also have out of band promotionsthat they've given me, raises
(22:25):
that they've given me to try toretain me even with those stock
options.
So if your company really doesvalue you, they will go out of
their way to hopefullyincentivize you to stay with
these cash options which arepreferable.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And that's potentially the third way of
thinking of golden handcuffs.
I don't think they're normallyassociated with it, but it's
just high pay In general, youhave a very high salary, but
you're doing a job that youdon't necessarily love.
That could be a situation whereyou feel like you have these
golden handcuffs, like I can'tquit my job because I make too
(22:58):
much money.
Even though I don't like it, Ihave to stay here.
That's another potential wayyou could feel like you have
golden handcuffs.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, I'm actually curious.
I had a question for you as Iwas thinking about this topic
and you know my background andwe've talked about on the show
before, as well as Bruce's, andwe didn't necessarily grow up
with a lot of money and so whenI went into tech and I got, like
my first salary offer, it feltlike I immediately had golden
handcuffs, because I'm like I'venever seen this amount of money
(23:29):
before.
You know, my parents have neverhad this amount of money before
.
Like it immediately felt like Ineed to stay here forever and
keep on leaning into thisbecause I'm never going to be
make more money than this.
This is incredible and soobviously, as I've gone through
my career, it's only increased.
But there is that, let's say,fear that I have of like.
Okay, I don't want to lose whatI have now, even though I know
(23:52):
because of comparables, becauseof talking to people like you
and Bruce and other people onthe show, there's other
opportunities out there thatcould pay a lot more than where
I'm at now, if that's what Ivalue.
So I was curious on yourthoughts like how much does
background do you think you know, lean into feeling like you
have those golden handcuffs?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So I think it could be a lot, and so I will say that
I'm similar.
I grew up very poor, rightChild of immigrants, all that
stuff right and I think it couldimpact how I view work.
I can tell you for a fact thatin the early 2000s I was already
in technology my mom wouldconstantly give me the advice of
sticking with the job I have,right, and because she was risk
(24:35):
averse and what I can tell youis according to the data, my mom
was wrong.
According to the data,depending on which survey you
look at, which year it is,someone who is more willing to
job hop versus someone who iswilling to stay at the same
place for their entire careerwill earn roughly 50% more over
(24:55):
the course of their career.
I will say this I was able onceto double my pay within the same
company, but just by changingroles.
So I changed up to a prettydramatic role and it wasn't even
a promotion to like leadership.
I wasn't like a c-level oranything like that, it was an
individual contributor role, butit was just a far more highly
valued contributor role asindividual contributor role, and
(25:17):
so I was able to double mymoney within the same company.
I've also been able to doublemy money by bouncing between two
different companies.
So it really depends.
So it can happen in either way.
But I think for me, the biggerthing is not necessarily whether
or not you stay with thecompany in terms of what your
trajectory is going to be interms of your earnings.
(25:37):
It's whether or not you'rewilling to extend yourself.
Chances are, if you get apromotion to a different role
you're going to get more money.
Chances are Not always, butgenerally right, and so if
you're within a company and youstay in the same role for 40
years, then, yeah, you're goingto make less than someone who
was willing to go out and trydifferent things.
Bottom line Now, apparently youcould still make more, even if
(26:01):
you're the person that's willingto take on different jobs by
switching companies.
But I can tell you that it'sgetting closer together.
I'm going to put this in thecorporate strategy part of the
Discord.
There's a chart showing thatthe pay difference between
people who stay at the samecompany versus people who leave
the company is tighteningInteresting.
Yeah, over the past year or soit started to tighten a lot, so
(26:24):
here I'll put this chart in foryou.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
What do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You think companies are just getting more Job market
is changing.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Okay, job market is just changing.
And now I think maybe companiesare staying up to date with the
market a little bit better,maybe they're calibrating if you
will, to use a corporate term alittle stronger.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I think that's what it is.
I put it in if you want to takea look at it later.
There is still a gap, but it'sjust not like the gap was at the
height of the pandemic.
At the height of the pandemic,it was high.
Staying at your job was not agood idea.
It's worth noting that Istarted at my new company in
2021, september of 2021.
(27:03):
It looks like I made the rightmove, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
According to the chart.
According to the chart,apparently, I timed the market
really well.
I got lucky.
I got lucky.
So here's what I'll say right,in terms of golden handcuffs,
you got to look at it like thiswhat do you want?
And any financial advisor youtalk to would tell you the same
thing.
What are your goals?
Right, and so you have one life.
(27:28):
That is the most precious thingyou have access to, in my
opinion, is time on this earth,and so what do you want to do
with it?
Now, there are, of course,hierarchy of needs.
There's minimum viable amountof money you need to live right,
and so I'm not advocating goingout and being a starving artist
.
Unless that's your passion, andyou have to do that, do it
(27:50):
Right.
But in general, what I wouldsay is what do you really want
out of life, and if you can makethe bare minimum amount of
money, you need to be able tomeet your needs.
Beyond that, everything else issecondary, and so if your goal
is to be able to have a veryluxurious retirement, then
(28:10):
chances are you're going to haveto keep grinding at whatever
the highest paying job isavailable to you at every moment
.
But that's okay If that's yourgoal and that's what makes you
happy, do that.
Okay, if that's your goal andthat's what makes you happy, do
that.
If that's not your goal, then Iwould start looking at what are
my viable alternatives.
Right, and so, as witheverything, there's opportunity
(28:35):
cost.
But I will say this I alwaysrefer to this book.
There's a book that Bruce and Iread in a book club.
I've referred to it before, butit's the Subtle Art of Not
Giving an F.
I didn't say the full word, butit's by Thank you for giving
that.
Pg for the little ears.
For the little ears yeah, allthese kids listening to
corporate strategy.
But it's by a guy named MarkManson and he has a really good
(28:55):
analogy early in that book andthat's basically talking about
people wanting to be a rock star.
And what he says is you don'twant to be a rock star.
Um, and like wait a minute.
Yeah, I do.
Right, of course I want to be arock star.
He's like no, no, no you, whatyou want is this idealized
version of a rock and roll life,but what you don't want to do
is play the guitar until yourfingers bleed.
(29:17):
You don't want to sit therepracticing in a garage six
nights a week.
You don't want to be playingdive bars and getting booed and
nobody listening to your musicfor years on end until you
finally get discovered, right,you don't want to put in the
work because you don't actuallylove being a musician, you just
think you want to be, have arock star life.
If you don't like for themusicians that do the work, the
(29:39):
vast majority of them don't everbecome big rock stars, much
less someone, and so you're morelikely to win the lotto, I
would argue, and so I just thinkhis argument there is that you
don't want to be a rock star.
It's something that you need tothink about and be realistic
about.
If your passion is going outand doing paintings, right,
(30:04):
that's fine.
But is that really what youwant to do?
Like?
Is that what you want to dowith your life more than
anything?
And it might be.
It might be, if your answer tothat question, after you really
think about it and you slept onit, maybe you slept on it again,
right?
Is that?
Yes, I have to be painting allthe time or I will go crazy.
Painting all the time or I willgo crazy.
Then you know what, figure outhow to make it work.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
But if that's not the answer, then figure out what
your real viable alternativesare for what you really want to
do with your life.
I love that.
Yeah, my wife actually lovesthis book.
She always recommends it to somany people and I think it's a
super interesting way to look atit and it's a realistic way.
It's as you look at whateveryour goals are say, you want to
make millions of dollars thenyou have to evaluate what I'm
(30:50):
doing now.
Is what I'm doing now going toget me there?
And, realistically, if you'regoing to stay in a corporate job
the rest of your life,potentially you'll have a
million or more in yourretirement one day, depending on
your salary.
So sure, that can get you there, but you're not going to be
able to enjoy those things untilyou get to that point, and then
you're going to be old and youdon't know if that's going to
actually be.
So be what you want in thatidealized way.
(31:11):
And so I think you have to thinkabout what do I actually want
for that and visualize it,really visualize it for how you
want to feel, what you want itto be.
And then, to your point, lookat your current situation and
say, okay, what do I have to dodifferently now to actually get
there?
And you do have to fall in lovewith the process, because it's
(31:31):
not going to happen overnightand depending whatever your goal
is, I mean maybe it couldhappen overnight if you win the
lotto, for example.
If you're like I want to winthe lottery, you're going to
have to play a lot in order towin the lottery and potentially
take a lot of risk Every singlepaycheck, dump it all into it.
Maybe you'll hit the lotto oneday, but if you're not playing
the lottery, long story short isyou're never going to win it.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And if you're not investing enough I have to
interrupt.
This is not financial advice byClark Cheddar Moop.
I want to be clear.
This is not financial advice.
Please understand that.
Okay, the financial adviceplease understand that.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Okay, you can continue.
Sorry, take your last paycheckand go dump it in the lottery.
Now You'll win the lottery, Ipromise Is that how you get
canceled on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yes, yeah, that's how you get canceled.
Okay, don't actually do that.
I agree, please do not do that.
Don't bankrupt your family.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But you're right, though, so you do have to love
the work.
Right, you got to love theprocess, and if you don't, then
you're going to have a bad time.
Right, you're gonna have tofigure.
It's like you're French fryingwhen you're supposed to pizza.
You know you're gonna have abad time, so you want to make
sure that you're cognizant ofthat.
Now, having said that, right,let's say you either a determine
that I need more money just tolive, or B I, you know you
(32:40):
figure out that I do want tohave a luxurious retirement and
I want to have money to go onvacation this year as opposed to
waiting until retirement Cool.
Now your question is how do Imaximize the amount of money I
make?
Golden handcuffs can seem likethe best way to make the most
money, and maybe it is.
Maybe.
I will give you an example.
(33:00):
We had a friend of ours that weknow that went to work for a
tech company.
He worked with us at adifferent tech company, went to
work at another tech company andthey gave him some stock when
he started.
They gave him about $100,000worth of stock as RSUs, like we
talked about earlier restrictedstock units.
Turns out the company didreally well and those RSUs ended
(33:22):
up being worth eight times asmuch as when he got hired, and
they gave him more RSUs a fewyears later, and so he had a
ridiculous package at that pointand he truly felt handcuffed,
like he cannot leave becausethere's just way too much money.
And he has a family, he's gotkids.
He wants to make sure his kidscan go to college.
He's able to pay for everything.
He has a family.
He's got kids.
He wants to make sure his kidscan go to college.
(33:42):
He's able to pay for everything.
So there is a moment where maybe, if it's stock-based golden
handcuffs and the stock doesreally well, it can be really
difficult, right, although thereis a tipping point even there,
in that direction also.
I'll give you an example NVIDIAhas recently gone on a tear.
If you don't know, nvidia makesgraphics cards, or what used to
(34:03):
be specifically graphics cards.
They're now just generalized asGPUs, and the reason is because
, although they were initiallymade for computer graphics,
turns out they're really goodfor AI and so they've been
powering the AI boom, and soNVIDIA's stock has gone up
ridiculously.
I don't even know what thepercent is, but it is a lot.
At any rate, one in two NVIDIAemployees is a millionaire, and
(34:26):
I think it's something like onein five has a net worth of over
25 million now.
And I'm talking about allemployees across the board, so
just imagine that.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That is crazy, that is nuts.
Yeah yeah, exactly to yourpoint.
It's like those people have tofeel handcuffed, like this is so
much money, why are youchanging money?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So whatever restricted stock units are still
on the clock.
If they quit, they're leavingthat on the table, right, like
they're walking away from thatmuch money and it's not exactly
guaranteed money because you canget fired.
If you get fired, right, youdon't have access to those RSUs
anymore, right?
So it's a risk to stay,potentially because you could
still get fired or somethinglike that, you know, laid off,
(35:13):
whatever.
It is right.
But every time you're lookingat the equation of doing
something else that is now partof the equation, the calculation
.
That's tough, right.
But here's what I'll say, right, and that's that this is advice
I gave to somebody recently.
They didn't necessarily have alot of RSUs on the line.
They were just looking at whatwas the best move for their
career, because they got anoffer from another company and
their company they're at rightnow had just gone through a lot
of changes, but the changes,from their perspective, could be
(35:36):
good.
They didn't know, right, sothey were on the fence.
This is what I told them.
Right, is that where you areright now, you're betting on
that company to figure out thosemajor changes.
So staying is betting on thecompany to do well, leaving into
this new role where you'regoing to be in a more dynamic
position.
You're going to be in thedriver's seat.
More is betting on yourself.
(35:56):
So staying with the existingcompany, betting on that company
to do well, going and exploringthe market and doing something
else potentially, is betting onyourself, and I would argue that
if you're the type of personthat is confident they're going
to do well in the corporateworld, I would recommend betting
on yourself every chance youget.
That doesn't mean leave thecompany you're at, but it does
mean make sure that you knowwhat your options are so that
(36:18):
when it comes time for reviews,for promotions, for whatever,
you understand what your valueis right and you can have that
conversation confidently withoutbeing a jerk.
I'm not talking about being ajerk to anybody.
In fact, I don't recommendburning bridges, really anywhere
but be able to confidentlyexplore the labor market, know
your value and then come backand have that conversation
(36:40):
efficiently, even if you end upstaying.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, absolutely, you know it's interesting,
absolutely it's interesting.
This book, the Subtle Art ofNot Giving an F, it kind of
indicates and I haven't read ina long time so you might have to
remind me that you take emotionout of the equation.
And let's face it, humans areemotional beings and so, as I
think about this as a peopleleader, you know, I tell my
(37:05):
employees all the time like, hey, if you're not happy here, tell
me.
And if truly we can't solvewhatever, whatever it is it's
not making you happy.
You know the thing you'reworking on, the amount of money
you're making, whatever it is,then I'll support you and
recommend you to go elsewherebecause it's better for you.
And I tell my employees that allthe time, and it always gives
them a shock because they'relike, so you're not saying
(37:25):
you're going to like beg to keepme and you know, please don't
leave.
I'm like no, because I want thebest for you and I believe if
we're doing important work andif we're doing work that I
believe in, that you'll want tostay for those reasons, as long
as we can compensate you rightand, you know, put you on the
right project, give you theright work-life balance,
whatever it is that you value,and so I'm curious from you know
(37:49):
your perspective of the booklike how do you keep emotion in
it while also being able to make, I guess, pragmatic decisions
that are not fueled by emotion?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
So so, to be fair, the book like if, if, if, I mean
I don't want to spoil it, but Iguess it doesn't matter.
It's like if, if, if, I mean Idon't want to spoil it, but I
guess it doesn't matter.
It's a self-help book, right?
So ultimately, there's nospoilers.
Reading it again is only goingto help you sharpen this off,
right, so there's no spoilers.
The this the book is titled thesubtle art of not giving an f,
but, realistically, it's thesubtle art of caring about what
matters.
(38:16):
That's actually what the realmoral of the book is, and so it
isn't necessarily to deleteemotion.
It's to make sure that anytimeyou're engaging in a decision
process for anything, either foryourself or for others, to make
sure you understand what'simportant and you work backwards
from that, right.
And so, to that end, right?
I would argue that what you'redoing in that conversation with
(38:40):
your employees and what youremployees should be doing in
that conversation with you isboth of you should be coming to
an agreement about what's thebest path forward, right?
And what that's going to do isit's going to ensure that the
team that you're running isproductive, because if one
person stays and they're unhappy, that's worse than them leaving
(39:01):
and being happy somewhere else.
So even if you're talking aboutjust from a selfish point of
view and, by the way, I agreewith you as a human that you're
doing the right thing as just agood human, so I love it when
things can align but even ifyou're looking at purely as a
cold-blooded evil capitalist,it's the right thing to do right
, and this is where bad leadersdon't.
(39:24):
This is where bad leaders getin their own way Right.
I'll give you one quick example.
I heard a good story a fewmonths back.
I was in some leadershiptraining and they mentioned that
A players hire A players, bplayers hire C players, and, and
so that realization like Idon't know why.
(39:45):
I'd never put that together insuch a succinct way.
But think about it.
People who are B players areprobably insecure about their
job, about their position, aboutwho they are.
What they want to do is theywant to hire people they can
keep under their thumb so theycan try to make themselves look
better.
But A players are confident,they're doing the right things,
(40:06):
they're making the right movesand they want to hire people
that are going to get promoted,because that's a team overall
that's going to do.
Well, if the team sees thattheir peers are getting promoted
, they're going to continue tobe happy at where they are
because they think I can do thesame, and that's a good thing,
right.
Additionally, a playersrecognize that if you hire
(40:29):
someone, you cultivate them, youhelp nurture them and they get
promoted.
You now have a peer that is anally also a good thing, right,
and so it's a win all around.
And, by the way, if you happento be a shareholder because
maybe you're lucky enough tohave some golden handcuffs
hiring and developing more Aplayers in your company is going
(40:49):
to enrich you, literally,because the stock price is going
to go up, because your companyis more productive.
So this is a virtuous cycle ofwinning by hiring good people,
but insecure people hire peoplewho they view as less than
themselves on purpose, right.
And so what you described is youbeing an A player, and I'm not
here to give you a pat on theback because you know you
(41:11):
probably already know you'redoing the right thing, but I'm
just calling out the mechanicsof it, right, Because that was,
I guess, ultimately yourquestion, right, about how you
bring that in.
Yeah, and you just have to lookat what is the optimal play
here?
And the optimal play is ifsomeone's unhappy, let's dissect
that and figure out how to makethem happy within the
constraints of what is available.
(41:32):
And what I mean by that issometimes you can't give them.
Let's say they deserve a$40,000 a year raise, but you
just don't have the budget togive it to them.
Okay, what else can we do?
And if the answer is we can'tdo anything, then yeah, how can
I help you and I'm not trying tokick you out, I don't want you
to leave, I actually like you onour team but how can I help you
(41:52):
make the next step to where youcan get what you deserve,
because unfortunately, I can'tgive it to you?
Here Again, I'm not kicking youout, I'm not threatening to
fire None of that.
In fact, quite the opposite.
I'd love to keep you.
I just I know I can't give youthat money, but I'm willing to
help work with you and get youthe skills you need to get to
that next level somewhere else,if that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, exactly, and it's so funny.
A couple of years ago I had anemployee she was a rock star and
that's exactly what happened.
I'm like I can't get you themoney you want, and I know
that's what you want and sheended up getting another job.
Funny enough, they were private, they went public.
She got a nice little payoutworked out for everybody and
(42:32):
she's really, really happy.
So I think to your point, youknow that's that's exactly the
type of culture you want tocreate and the opportunity cost
of staying versus going andlooking at what you value.
And you know my my last kind oftwo thoughts.
You know I mentioned thisperson before on the podcast,
but a buddy of mine, you know,as we look at his CAC, his
compensation is the thing hecares about.
He cares about, you know hewants to retire in 10 years, so
he's like I need to make as muchmoney as possible, as fast as
(42:53):
possible, so I can just not haveto work for the remainder of my
life, and so he's not rude inany way, but he's very specific
and, I guess, intentional aboutthe way he works, that he's not
going to do something if it'snot going to lead him to more
money, meaning a promotion,meaning a raise, meaning a sales
target.
If it's a, hey, someone needsto update the wiki.
(43:16):
So our team onboarding is goingto be better.
He typically opts out becausehe's like I could spend that
time on a sales call instead.
And so to your point about thelonger term vision.
Sure does it help the companyif you onboard people really
well and you have a good process?
Sure, but he's probably notgoing to stick around at that
company more than two yearsbecause he knows he can get a
raise somewhere else toultimately get more money.
(43:38):
So it's kind of funny to yourpoint.
It's evaluating what are yourgoals.
It does go back to that.
You know.
First, principles, what are youtrying to achieve in life, what
do you value, and then makingsure what you're doing now is
actually in line with that.
I think the last note that isjust on top of my mind is to say
you have to evaluate yoursituation to exactly what you
(44:00):
said earlier, alex.
It's what are my constraintsaround me, that I'm working with
?
I have a mortgage, I have afamily, I have responsibilities,
I need to take care of Somethings you can't sacrifice
unless you're okay, potentiallydamaging those things, and so
you need to make sure whateverplan you put together when
you're determining whether thegolden handcuffs are real and
(44:20):
you need to stay, you knowsupports, whatever your end
goals are, and you can't just goand make the jump to a
struggling musician for the next10 years if you need to pay
bills and you know yourconstraints and you're like
that's just not going to workfor my lifestyle.
So I think to your point aboutthe book and some of the I guess
, overall themes is evaluateyour current situation,
(44:44):
understand if you can truly be arock star and then work
backwards from there and realizethe sacrifices or the
opportunity cost of doing thethings that would take to be a
rock star and then workbackwards from there and realize
the sacrifices or theopportunity cost of doing the
things that would take to be arock star are not going to work
with my lifestyle.
So now I can just move awayfrom what I was thinking and
what I idealized to a morerealistic goal which in the end
will make you happier anyway.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Any last notes no, I completely agree.
I think you summed itmed it up.
So yeah, begin with the end inmind and figure out what you can
do to get there yeah and maybeit's not viable right now.
The other.
The last thing I would say isjust, if it's not value
available to you right now,that's okay.
Re-evaluate in the future.
You should check in withyourself on a regular basis,
right, so that evaluationprocess isn't one and done.
(45:30):
Keep reevaluating what youroptions are, more or less
constantly, if you can.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah absolutely yeah.
And just to give a personalanecdote too, is you know, for
me, coming from my background,the golden handcuffs were real
for a while.
But when I took that step back afew years ago and I looked at
what I want to do eventually Iwould love to start my own
company and work for myself, andI think with that I know now's
(45:57):
not the time my wife and I satdown and talked about it and
there's certain financial goalsthat we want to hit in order to
kind of feel that freedom ortake that risk, if you will.
So we've evaluated theopportunity cost of staying
where we are for a little while,hitting those financial goals
and then being willing to take arisk.
But we're on the same pagetogether about what that looks
like, what the timeline lookslike, and so it makes it easier
to go through your day-to-dayknowing I have a plan.
(46:18):
I know when this is going tohappen Situations could change,
but if things remain static,this is going to be the goal to
get to where I want to go.
And so I think yourealistically have to do that if
you have a partner, plan withyour partner and make sure that
you guys are on the same pagefor whatever you're kind of
planning, if it does impact yourlifestyle.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Smart.
One reason you may want to jumpship is because of all the
sludge at work.
It happens to be something of ameme in the what Do you Meme
channel, if you want to go overit.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Oh boy.
Well, the question is do youwant to do it?
Do I throw this on you becauseyou're the guest, or do you want
me to do it?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Uh, I don't care either way.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
All right, I want to hear you do it, because you're
so articulate.
I would love to hear yourrendition of this.
What do you mean?
We explain visual memes in avoice articulated format.
It's great podcast material.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So, alex, take us, take us away yeah, so this meme
happens to be in the form of aof a gif, and I want to clarify
it is graphics, it is notgraphics.
So, bruce, you were 100incorrect.
It is gif and always has been.
But anyway, it's a gift, it'sanimated and in this instance,
(47:29):
there appears to be a superhero,and this superhero is feeling
pangs of betrayal as he floatsin a green river of sludge, he
laments his sorry state.
He says my eyes, the goggles donothing, and realistically, I
feel like this is a commentaryon life.
It says my eyes, the goggles donothing, and realistically, I
(47:52):
feel like this is a commentaryon life.
This is coming from a verynihilistic individual indicating
that, it's true, in life, thegoggles do nothing, although I
think the gif actually saysnogles.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
I think it says nogles.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, which it's supposed to be goggles, but I
think this particular gift saysgoggles, but it was a commentary
on the sludge of corpo life anduh, I, I personally am here for
it.
Well done, individualcontributor awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Well done to you for doing that so well and, yeah,
individual contributor, forsubmitting your meme, as always.
You can always jump into ourdiscord and submit your memes
too if you want to hear usexplain them.
And guess what?
We're going to make Bruce do itwhen he comes back because he
missed an episode.
So we have to punish him.
So he is going to be next upand we've got to give him some
really good ones for him to runthrough and explain with his
(48:43):
mouth parts.
Don't want to miss it.
Other than that, I, we, we hitit all.
We did a.
What do you mean?
We have episodes, we had news,we had awesome stories, we had
awesome dialogue, we had ourguest on.
This was a banger of an episode.
So thank you, alex, for comingon and thank you everybody who's
listening.
Please share us.
Jump into that link tree justby scrolling down your podcast
(49:06):
player of choice and clickingthe link.
You can go to our website tosubmit a topic.
You can one click to join thediscord, where you can play
things like what do you mean,where you can see the things
that Alex posted, like the videoon Arizona tea or the graph
bringing the hey job hoppingversus staying current company
compensation together.
You can only do that in thediscord, so click that link,
(49:26):
join the discord.
We've got people joining allthe time.
Conversation's great and share.
That's.
The biggest thing you can dofor us is share Anything else.
Alex, any last words?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
I think you summed it up well and I appreciate it
being here.
Thanks, clark.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Absolutely All right.
Everybody that wraps up thisepisode and what's the right
corporatism that we can useright?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
here Bruce is way better at this Until the fat
lady sings.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We'll see you next time You're on mute.
You're on mute, see you.
This is awkward when bruceisn't here, everything just
(50:19):
falls apart.
I can't kick craig out.
Oh wait, wait, one of us can doit all.
Right, this is the real goodbye, bye.
Craig.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
He's back.
Open your mind, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm a little scared.
That was the first time I haveever opened the door to the
dungeon and let him in.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, yeah.
You now have to send that toseven people, or else he will
kill you in a week.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Oh, my goodness, I forgot about those text threads
and emails I used to go out like.
You must send this to sevenfriends, otherwise your house
will burn down.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, I don't know how anybody ever believed any of
that stuff.
But hey, what are you going todo, man?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
that was like guerrilla marketing at its
finest.
Hey, so um the the topic todayis how to call in sick to your
own podcast.
That is absolutely.
I mean, yeah, we had a call out.
This is weird.
We've got a sub.
This is the first time we haveever done an episode on this
show without Bruce.
(00:56):
It's Clark and Alex, alex, atotally different style, and I
don't know how this is going togo.
It could be mess.
It could be awesome.
Maybe we'll just fire him afterthis.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm surprised he's not like lurking behind a
bush, kind of looking to see howthings are going.
Uh, so, his uh.
So for those that don't know,his, uh, bruce's voice is is
struggling.
He's on the struggle bus.
As far as illness goes, heshould be fine, no problems,
within a couple of days, but fornow he is in no condition to
record a podcast, much lessspeak with anyone, and so that
(01:33):
is why I'm here subbing in.
So here we go.
Uh oh, did you want to do theofficial intro?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I guess should we intro and I guess we're gonna
just say our names.
It's gonna sound weird, but wegot to do it.
It's the only right thing.
It it's the only right thing todo.
It's the only right thing to do.
Welcome to Corporate Strategy.
The podcast that comes in emailit's Clark and Alex.
That's not right.
Something just fell wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I just don't like it.
It just doesn't feel right.
It's very uneasy yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And we opened the dungeon to Craig on our own,
without Bruce's supervision.
Yeah, this could be a completenightmare, but I think it's
going to be fine.
I think it's going to be justfine, and we don't know that
he'll get his voice back, sothis could just be a new age for
us, where it's no more Bruce.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I mean he shouldn't have crossed that ferry in the
deep woods and so that's his ownfault.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
He should have shared our podcast seven times,
otherwise he could have lost hisvoice.
That was the text, all right.
So, yeah, we are doing anunusual podcast today, but we're
really excited about it.
We have capitalistcorrespondent Alex Restrepo
coming in to join us once againfor the first time in 2025.
First thing we have to do is aquick vibe check.
(02:44):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I am fantastic.
Earlier this morning I went outand broken a new pickleball
paddle and it is.
Oh my gosh, it was so crisp theway it struck.
True, it was a thing of beauty.
I felt really really good outthere, and then I had a pretty
productive day at work, gettingready for what's going to be a
busy day Well, sorry, busy weekand so it's just been a really
(03:08):
good day.
Man, I feel great.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I love to hear it.
You are so dedicated topickleball I did not realize you
went before work on a Mondaymorning.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Sometimes, not every time, but yeah, I try to play
three times a week if I can.
It's just so much fun.
It's really infectious.
It gets in your blood.
If you ever try it out, that'sawesome.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm totally going to have to hit you up one of these
times because we don't live toofar from each other and I want
to try some pickleball.
I've never played, so I don'tknow the euphoria of breaking in
a new pickleball paddle, but Iwill soon.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It's all good.
I'm happy to play youleft-handed and or just bring it
down to your level.
I just enjoy playing.
It doesn't have to be withanybody in particular.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So I'm down.
Awesome, yeah, totally lookingforward to that.
Yeah, what is my vibe check?
How am I feeling today?
I actually had a similar day asyou.
I started off the day withbacon.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So I mean that kind of set, the whole vibe for the
whole entire day.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Did you make like cookies or like scones?
No, it was bacon and eggs, ryeand bacon grease.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
You ever done that before?
Oh boy, have I Hell, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Your arteries are hating it, but it tasted so good
.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I started with that.
That's a myth about thearteries.
What?
The arteries you think so it'sbig sugar man, that's what
causes bad cholesterol.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Fair enough.
I mean, I think, to quote averb we used in our last podcast
episode it just helps thingsfall right out.
That's what baby goose does.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh, let's not revisit that one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, it's a little too soon.
Maybe a trigger warning for thepeople before we do that in the
future.
Anyways, productive day.
I actually had this week fullyplanned out in terms of tasks
that I need to do every day, interms of everything on my
calendar that needed to be inplace, so I had the right
priorities and I was able to getthrough all of my priorities
today.
So my task list is clear, whichis like the best feeling in the
(05:03):
world.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Okay, so my task list is clear, which is like the
best feeling in the world.
Oh, absolutely, it completelyis.
You always love that feeling ofaccomplishment, right and
having a clean, fresh start fromthe next day.
It's the best.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
No debt from previous days or weeks Absolutely the
best.
Love it All.
Right.
So you need to tell me and tellthe people your tips.
Do you write everything down?
Do you have a list going intothe day or do you, big brain
Alex, remember everything andyou just know what you need to
get through?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I am not the paragon to be talking about
self-organization.
I kind of even though I don'tlike jazz I kind of approach
work like jazz, but I basicallythere was a.
There was a friend of ours, acoworker and a friend this guy,
brian, that I worked with at onepoint.
He would say stay confused washis catchphrase, and I think he
(05:53):
actually listens to this podcast, at least sometimes, and that
stay confused mantra helpsbecause you see a lot of people
stress out and those people arenot staying confused and so stay
confused just basically meansgo loosey, goosey, go with the
flow.
What I do is I try to do my bestto make sure everything is
properly on my calendar,including stuff that I'm doing
(06:14):
for myself, right?
So if I'm doing a task andthere's actually multiple
reasons to do that If you workfor a big corporation, there's a
decent chance they have AIchecking in on your productivity
and one of the things they dois they crawl your calendar and
so highly recommend, if you'redoing work, put it on your
calendar so that it shows up asthings you're doing in work.
(06:35):
But for me it helps keep my dayorganized.
It's just making sure I havesomething on my calendar for
everything.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So your task list basically is your calendar and
you prioritize your calendar towhatever needs to be at the top
for that week.
That's exactly correct.
Yes, yeah, makes sense and thatmakes it really simple too.
It's like if your calendarreflects your task list, then
you should be good to go.
I think where I always get hungup is the longer term projects
that you know you need a fewweeks of things happening at
(07:03):
certain times.
That's where the calendar kindof falls apart for me, because I
lose track of where all theprojects are.
I've tried color coding, I'vetried, you know, other ways and
other task management systems,and I ended up using a tool
called Monday to do all myorganization for those bigger
things, because it's just sohard to coordinate at my
calendar.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
This podcast brought to you by Monday productivity
tool for those of you strugglingto keep your projects in order.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
We are not sponsored.
That was a really goodadvertisement.
Well, you said you had a bunchof stuff to talk about and I
don't even know where this isgoing, just to be clear for
everybody.
So I'm going to just CYA myselfright now to say I have no idea
what we're going to talk about,but I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
This is a throwback to about like a year ago.
Like a Clark from about a yearago was like this, where you
would show up and it would be agrab bag, right.
Ooh, what am I going to walkinto today, who knows?
Right, I remember listening tothose podcasts and that energy.
It had a good vibe though theenergy there, so hopefully this
will be similar.
No, the first thing I wanted totalk about was actually just a
(08:09):
video I posted in the Discordabout Arizona the company, the
Arizona Tea Company Tea.
As the capitalist correspondentI just figured, it made sense to
highlight a feel-good story fora change.
There's so much doom and gloomin the capitalist corporal world
out there that I thought if youcome across a good story, you
(08:32):
should share it.
And so Arizona.
So the company was founded inthe early 90s by a dude in New
York, my hometown.
I'm originally from New YorkCity, he was from Brooklyn, I
was from Queens.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's only the 90s.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, 92.
Are you serious?
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I literally thought this was a company that's at
least 100 years old at thispoint.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
No, no, arizona.
Arizona actually came aboutbecause this dude saw the
Snapple company doing well andthought, hey, I could do that.
I could do tea right, but I'mgoing to do it a little
different.
And so his inspiration for thecans came from the fact that he
had been a beer distributor.
And so he saw Tallboy Cans ofBeer and thought I could do that
(09:16):
right.
And so that was the difference.
But I'll give you an example,one of the snippets they do at
the very beginning of the videoand I posted this in podcast,
books, documentaries, channel inour discord, um, which, as per
usual, there'll be a way to getto the discord later on in the
show, but, um, anyway, at thebeginning of the video he talks
about like there's an interview,right, and someone asks him hey
(09:37):
, why, uh, why 99 cents?
Why don't you charge more money?
And his response is we'rereally successful, so we're good
.
And then, if you watch the restof the video, that's the vibe
throughout the whole thing.
And I looked them up.
I looked up a lot of the statson this guy and he has a net
worth of like $6 billion.
He himself, individually, he'sa $6 billion man.
(09:57):
Now the price of Arizona hasnot gone up since its inception,
that 99 cent can.
And so, apparently, accordingto quote, unquote nominal
inflation, which I'm always like, it's probably incorrect,
because it seems like inflationis always calculated under what
it really is in terms of thereal world.
But they're saying that thatshould be at least $2.50 by now
(10:21):
if it kept up with inflation.
And so what he did was, numberone, he worked on efficiencies
behind the scenes, right, interms of cutting the cost of
production.
And then, number two, he justdidn't hire people.
He didn't need to hire, right,like he didn't bloat the company
unnecessarily.
It's a privately held company.
He doesn't have to reportquarterly earnings or any of
(10:42):
that stuff, right?
He's only answerable to himselfand his sons, who he did hire,
but his sons are, like, activeparticipants in the success of
the company in terms of the workthey're doing.
At one point someone asked himhow big his marketing company
was, because they seem to bedoing pretty well in marketing,
and he responded it's big.
And the guy said well, how big?
And he said it's about six footeight, because he's six foot
(11:04):
eight and he was the marketingdepartment, right?
So if I don't know if you got achance to watch the video, but
it's just the vibe of the wholething.
The guy just has the bestattitude and it just shows you
that you can have a company atbillion dollar scale that can
still be a force for good in theworld.
He also treats his employeesreally well, so it's all good.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I love the vibes that you're sharing.
I mean, you can shame me, Ihave not watched it yet, but I
will.
I will shortly after this.
I'm just way behind on thediscord in the first two weeks
of the new year.
That's awesome, though itreminds me a lot of the like
Costco hotdog thing of yeah, wedon't care that it's a dollar
2525 and we're operating at aloss.
It's about the principles ofwhat we stand for and we're
(11:48):
going to figure out how to makeit work for our customers, which
I love.
I think that's such a good idea.
So 6 billion, is it onlyArizona?
Is that his only brand?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah Well, I mean to be fair.
Arizona as a brand has expandedbeyond just tea and I learned
that watching the video.
I didn't know, and this also isnot an advertisement for
Arizona.
I just respect the, the, theway the dude carried himself
throughout the entire video,like the, the concept of like I,
I have a really good life.
Why do I need more?
(12:18):
And I just wish more peopleremembered that you know Right,
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, that's incredible.
I love that and yeah, Iremember there there being a lot
of like yeah, is he even makingmoney or the operating at a
loss?
So are they making money onthose Arizona teas?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So yeah, actually they are.
So even on the 99 cent cansthey are making money, and the
way they're making money.
So they did they did a lot ofclever stuff.
One example is they were ableto re-engineer the cans to use
less aluminum, which saved thema ton of money.
And so there's a ton of littleexamples like that so they've
just grown in terms ofefficiency and productivity.
(12:54):
Instead of raising prices,they've increased how productive
they are, and that's where theprofits are coming from.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That's super cool.
Yeah, I know, with just therise of the cost of inflation
it's like that alone and thecost of aluminum probably has
made it really hard to make aprofit.
But if you focus on theefficiencies and you slim down
your team to only the MVP groupthat you need, you can probably
still operate at some sort ofmargin.
(13:25):
Maybe it's slim, but still Imean that's incredible that
they're making money on that atall, just given the cost of
everything else.
It's funny If you guys checkout the Discord there is a link.
Just scroll down the link tree.
As Alex referred to earlier,there's a lot of YouTube videos
that you post from a YouTubechannel called how Money Works
and it's a great channel becausethey just published a new video
(13:45):
about middlemen and how it'sbeen like the golden age of
middlemen for the last I don'teven know how long I said like
30 years or something like thatand technology has basically
became the ultimate middlemanbetween all these different
companies and I think theconcept that we're talking about
here is like they probably arecutting out a lot of middlemen
and going directly to the sourceand figured out those
efficiencies where they're ableto still operate the costs let's
(14:08):
say the COGS, in a way thatthey can keep some sort of
margin in the positive, which issuper impressive.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yep yeah.
So just a feel-good story tostart.
But, actually, it does dovetailinto what is going to be the
real topic, and it's actually aresponse to something that
somebody asked for in theDiscord, right?
So those topic submittals thathappen in the Discord a couple
of weeks, like it may even be acouple of months.
Now, back, jojo had asked forhow to deal with golden
(14:38):
handcuffs, and so this isactually, I think, a related
topic in a sense.
Right, but we were talkingabout knowing when enough is
enough, right, and so that'skind of related, and I'll talk
about that in a second.
Given that we're introducing aterm golden handcuffs it
probably makes sense to explainwhat that concept is for folks
(15:00):
that are either new to thecorporal world or maybe other
countries that are listeningthat may not use that term.
So golden handcuffs issomething that can happen to you
.
If you're really good at yourjob and you're really lucky, a
company could value youSurprisingly.
Yes, even in today's world,even in 2025, companies can
identify true talent at timesand choose to try to reward them
(15:23):
in a way that helps keep themRight, and so that's the key
component of this is that anygolden handcuff mechanic,
there's a time vesting aspect toit, and the whole purpose is to
keep you working at the companythat you're at, hopefully keep
you happy, right?
And so there are a couple ofdifferent vehicles that can be
(15:45):
used for this.
I know of at least two that I'vepersonally experienced and or
seen from others.
One is RSUs, which arerestricted stock units, which
will have different conditions,and so I've received RSUs at
different times, and basicallywhat it means is hey, we're
(16:05):
going to give you a block ofstock, however much it is, let's
say it's a thousand shares ofstock of a company, right that's
?
And in order to be able tooffer rsus, the company has to
be public or intending to gopublic, um, and so those rsus
will be worth nothing if thecompany does not go public, um,
although they can be worthsomething if the company gets
acquired.
But anyway, anyway, it's awhole mess, but regardless, to
(16:27):
simplify it, the idea is here'sa block of stocks, let's say a
thousand, and it's going toinvest over four years, and so
if you stick around for one year, we're going to give you 250
shares, that's one quarter ofthe amount, and then there could
be different vesting schedulesafter that.
As an example, I have some RSUsright now and they had a
(16:48):
one-year cliff.
And then it's three monthsEvery quarter.
Basically I get a small amountuntil it trues up to the vesting
schedule that was set up.
So in the example that I gaveof 1,000 shares over four years,
it could be yearly that itvests, or it could be quarterly
or whatever, and they give yousome subsection of 250 every
(17:10):
quarter.
Whatever 250 divided by fourwould be, that's how much they
would give you.
So those are different examples, but that's RSUs.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Mine's actually very similar, just to touch on my
aspect of it, and actually it'sinteresting that you say this.
Yeah, it's about retention.
I have RSUs as well and I'mpart of a public company, so
luckily those RSUs areimmediately valuable to me so I
could immediately choose afterthose vests, I could immediately
sell if I wanted to, and it'sessentially just free money, and
(17:37):
mine do distribute quarterly, Ibelieve so I get a certain
vesture over the next threeyears.
I think that I have remainingfor the subsequent amount, and
so it works really well in thatregard.
I mean, to me what my companyoffers isn't huge, so it's not
like massive enough for me tohave golden handcuffs because of
that.
But there's a lot of cases whereif you're a startup and you're
(18:00):
a private company, they are kindof just this magical.
This is really interesting withme.
There's these magical stockoptions that you have that mean
nothing because you're notpublicly traded, but they're
vested on the promise that onceyou sell or once the company
goes public, you will then haveaccess to all of those shares.
And so it's how a lot of thebigger technology companies in
the past have made millionairesout of the founding members
(18:22):
because they have all thisequity in the company via those
shares and they're essentiallyable to cash those out at the
time the company sells or goespublic.
Another example of that if youown your own company and then
you sell your own company, theycould pay you to stay on for a
series of years.
In one year they'll pay you outX amount.
In two years they'll pay youout Y amount in order to retain
(18:45):
your knowledge or onboard thenew team or transition it to the
new company.
So there's a lot of ways oftrying to retain the people for
different purposes, at bothpublic companies, private
companies and also when you sellcompanies of your own.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And that was the second type.
So, first of all, in terms ofwhat you were talking about,
about the promise of futurevalue, I actually experienced
that at my current company.
My current company IPO'd inApril of last year, oh nice.
So I was hired on prior to theIPO.
I'd been at the company for twoand a half years by the time we
IPO'd and so, yeah, so I got toexperience that and it's pretty
(19:22):
awesome.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I, yeah, so I got to experience that and it's pretty
awesome.
Yeah, I've heard that.
I've heard of like, after acompany goes public, a lot of
people quit that day and thendrive off in Ferraris just
because they made millions,potentially because of how long
they've been in the company withthat promise.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I have no desire to quit.
I actually like my companyquite a bit, but you could right
yeah, absolutely.
And then the second thing yousaid was the second type of
handcuff that I was going totalk about, which is some sort
of cash incentive.
I've heard it called it depends, right, there's long-term cash
incentive and then there'll belike short-term cash incentives.
Would be like things like yousaid, like, let's say, you're
(19:55):
being made redundant but theywant you to train your
replacements.
They'll give you a pretty heftybonus if you work through the
end of your period, and soyou're incentivized to basically
stick it out until the end.
So those are different types ofcash incentives.
So those are the two primarytypes of golden handcuffs, and
again, not everybody ever getsaccess to these, but if you're
(20:17):
fortunate enough to be a highlyvalued individual, then you're
going to get access to these.
Right, I will say that mycompany, before the IPO I think
everybody that got hired beforethe IPO had some amount of
shares.
I don't remember what theamount was or anything like that
for everybody, but I thinkeverybody had some.
(20:39):
And so joining a pre-IPOcompany can be risky if that's
part of what you're looking atas your compensation is the
stock payout of what it will bewhen you go public.
There's a risk there becauseyour company may never go public
.
There's a chance of that, right.
Plenty of companies fail RightTo actually go public and plenty
of companies go out of business, right.
So that can happen, right.
(21:01):
I'm not saying it will happento the company you're working
for.
I'm just saying you have toweigh all of those risks
together.
I was lucky that for me thestock was just a cherry on top.
I was happy with mycompensation and it happened to
be a really nice thing thathappened to me, but I didn't
necessarily need it, right?
Yeah.
So, I would approach it that way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's great, yeah, and to your point,
just to say it another way, it'sas you're getting offers, you
might get promises from privatecompanies of all this equity in
the company or stock options and, like we're talking about here,
they may mean nothing If thecompany goes under, if they go
bankrupt, if they end up notselling, if they fail.
You don't want to necessarilyhinge all of your decision
(21:43):
making on those future options,which may or may not happen.
It's a risk and I think that'sa little bit of what you wanted
to talk about with goldenhandcuffs is like everything in
your decision making is kind oftying into that concept of you
can get these golden handcuffson you and you can feel locked
in because of that.
I mean, I can tell you even inmy own company, to your point
(22:04):
about valuing hard workers andpeople who bring value to the
company.
I do feel like my company'sdone a pretty great job
recognizing me.
From six years ago when Ijoined, to now, I've doubled the
salary that I started at, andso I think that's pretty good
recognition of not only have Igotten promoted, but they've
also have out of band promotionsthat they've given me, raises
(22:25):
that they've given me to try toretain me even with those stock
options.
So if your company really doesvalue you, they will go out of
their way to hopefullyincentivize you to stay with
these cash options which arepreferable.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And that's potentially the third way of
thinking of golden handcuffs.
I don't think they're normallyassociated with it, but it's
just high pay In general, youhave a very high salary, but
you're doing a job that youdon't necessarily love.
That could be a situation whereyou feel like you have these
golden handcuffs, like I can'tquit my job because I make too
(22:58):
much money.
Even though I don't like it, Ihave to stay here.
That's another potential wayyou could feel like you have
golden handcuffs.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, I'm actually curious.
I had a question for you as Iwas thinking about this topic
and you know my background andwe've talked about on the show
before, as well as Bruce's, andwe didn't necessarily grow up
with a lot of money and so whenI went into tech and I got, like
my first salary offer, it feltlike I immediately had golden
handcuffs, because I'm like I'venever seen this amount of money
(23:29):
before.
You know, my parents have neverhad this amount of money before
.
Like it immediately felt like Ineed to stay here forever and
keep on leaning into thisbecause I'm never going to be
make more money than this.
This is incredible and soobviously, as I've gone through
my career, it's only increased.
But there is that, let's say,fear that I have of like.
Okay, I don't want to lose whatI have now, even though I know
(23:52):
because of comparables, becauseof talking to people like you
and Bruce and other people onthe show, there's other
opportunities out there thatcould pay a lot more than where
I'm at now, if that's what Ivalue.
So I was curious on yourthoughts like how much does
background do you think you know, lean into feeling like you
have those golden handcuffs?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So I think it could be a lot, and so I will say that
I'm similar.
I grew up very poor, rightChild of immigrants, all that
stuff right and I think it couldimpact how I view work.
I can tell you for a fact thatin the early 2000s I was already
in technology my mom wouldconstantly give me the advice of
sticking with the job I have,right, and because she was risk
(24:35):
averse and what I can tell youis according to the data, my mom
was wrong.
According to the data,depending on which survey you
look at, which year it is,someone who is more willing to
job hop versus someone who iswilling to stay at the same
place for their entire careerwill earn roughly 50% more over
(24:55):
the course of their career.
I will say this I was able onceto double my pay within the same
company, but just by changingroles.
So I changed up to a prettydramatic role and it wasn't even
a promotion to like leadership.
I wasn't like a c-level oranything like that, it was an
individual contributor role, butit was just a far more highly
valued contributor role asindividual contributor role, and
(25:17):
so I was able to double mymoney within the same company.
I've also been able to doublemy money by bouncing between two
different companies.
So it really depends.
So it can happen in either way.
But I think for me, the biggerthing is not necessarily whether
or not you stay with thecompany in terms of what your
trajectory is going to be interms of your earnings.
(25:37):
It's whether or not you'rewilling to extend yourself.
Chances are, if you get apromotion to a different role
you're going to get more money.
Chances are Not always, butgenerally right, and so if
you're within a company and youstay in the same role for 40
years, then, yeah, you're goingto make less than someone who
was willing to go out and trydifferent things.
Bottom line Now, apparently youcould still make more, even if
(26:01):
you're the person that's willingto take on different jobs by
switching companies.
But I can tell you that it'sgetting closer together.
I'm going to put this in thecorporate strategy part of the
Discord.
There's a chart showing thatthe pay difference between
people who stay at the samecompany versus people who leave
the company is tighteningInteresting.
Yeah, over the past year or soit started to tighten a lot, so
(26:24):
here I'll put this chart in foryou.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
What do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You think companies are just getting more Job market
is changing.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Okay, job market is just changing.
And now I think maybe companiesare staying up to date with the
market a little bit better,maybe they're calibrating if you
will, to use a corporate term alittle stronger.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I think that's what it is.
I put it in if you want to takea look at it later.
There is still a gap, but it'sjust not like the gap was at the
height of the pandemic.
At the height of the pandemic,it was high.
Staying at your job was not agood idea.
It's worth noting that Istarted at my new company in
2021, september of 2021.
(27:03):
It looks like I made the rightmove, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
According to the chart.
According to the chart,apparently, I timed the market
really well.
I got lucky.
I got lucky.
So here's what I'll say right,in terms of golden handcuffs,
you got to look at it like thiswhat do you want?
And any financial advisor youtalk to would tell you the same
thing.
What are your goals?
Right, and so you have one life.
(27:28):
That is the most precious thingyou have access to, in my
opinion, is time on this earth,and so what do you want to do
with it?
Now, there are, of course,hierarchy of needs.
There's minimum viable amountof money you need to live right,
and so I'm not advocating goingout and being a starving artist
.
Unless that's your passion, andyou have to do that, do it
(27:50):
Right.
But in general, what I wouldsay is what do you really want
out of life, and if you can makethe bare minimum amount of
money, you need to be able tomeet your needs.
Beyond that, everything else issecondary, and so if your goal
is to be able to have a veryluxurious retirement, then
(28:10):
chances are you're going to haveto keep grinding at whatever
the highest paying job isavailable to you at every moment
.
But that's okay If that's yourgoal and that's what makes you
happy, do that.
Okay, if that's your goal andthat's what makes you happy, do
that.
If that's not your goal, then Iwould start looking at what are
my viable alternatives.
Right, and so, as witheverything, there's opportunity
(28:35):
cost.
But I will say this I alwaysrefer to this book.
There's a book that Bruce and Iread in a book club.
I've referred to it before, butit's the Subtle Art of Not
Giving an F.
I didn't say the full word, butit's by Thank you for giving
that.
Pg for the little ears.
For the little ears yeah, allthese kids listening to
corporate strategy.
But it's by a guy named MarkManson and he has a really good
(28:55):
analogy early in that book andthat's basically talking about
people wanting to be a rock star.
And what he says is you don'twant to be a rock star.
Um, and like wait a minute.
Yeah, I do.
Right, of course I want to be arock star.
He's like no, no, no you, whatyou want is this idealized
version of a rock and roll life,but what you don't want to do
is play the guitar until yourfingers bleed.
(29:17):
You don't want to sit therepracticing in a garage six
nights a week.
You don't want to be playingdive bars and getting booed and
nobody listening to your musicfor years on end until you
finally get discovered, right,you don't want to put in the
work because you don't actuallylove being a musician, you just
think you want to be, have arock star life.
If you don't like for themusicians that do the work, the
(29:39):
vast majority of them don't everbecome big rock stars, much
less someone, and so you're morelikely to win the lotto, I
would argue, and so I just thinkhis argument there is that you
don't want to be a rock star.
It's something that you need tothink about and be realistic
about.
If your passion is going outand doing paintings, right,
(30:04):
that's fine.
But is that really what youwant to do?
Like?
Is that what you want to dowith your life more than
anything?
And it might be.
It might be, if your answer tothat question, after you really
think about it and you slept onit, maybe you slept on it again,
right?
Is that?
Yes, I have to be painting allthe time or I will go crazy.
Painting all the time or I willgo crazy.
Then you know what, figure outhow to make it work.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
But if that's not the answer, then figure out what
your real viable alternativesare for what you really want to
do with your life.
I love that.
Yeah, my wife actually lovesthis book.
She always recommends it to somany people and I think it's a
super interesting way to look atit and it's a realistic way.
It's as you look at whateveryour goals are say, you want to
make millions of dollars thenyou have to evaluate what I'm
(30:50):
doing now.
Is what I'm doing now going toget me there?
And, realistically, if you'regoing to stay in a corporate job
the rest of your life,potentially you'll have a
million or more in yourretirement one day, depending on
your salary.
So sure, that can get you there, but you're not going to be
able to enjoy those things untilyou get to that point, and then
you're going to be old and youdon't know if that's going to
actually be.
So be what you want in thatidealized way.
(31:11):
And so I think you have to thinkabout what do I actually want
for that and visualize it,really visualize it for how you
want to feel, what you want itto be.
And then, to your point, lookat your current situation and
say, okay, what do I have to dodifferently now to actually get
there?
And you do have to fall in lovewith the process, because it's
(31:31):
not going to happen overnightand depending whatever your goal
is, I mean maybe it couldhappen overnight if you win the
lotto, for example.
If you're like I want to winthe lottery, you're going to
have to play a lot in order towin the lottery and potentially
take a lot of risk Every singlepaycheck, dump it all into it.
Maybe you'll hit the lotto oneday, but if you're not playing
the lottery, long story short isyou're never going to win it.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And if you're not investing enough I have to
interrupt.
This is not financial advice byClark Cheddar Moop.
I want to be clear.
This is not financial advice.
Please understand that.
Okay, the financial adviceplease understand that.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Okay, you can continue.
Sorry, take your last paycheckand go dump it in the lottery.
Now You'll win the lottery, Ipromise Is that how you get
canceled on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yes, yeah, that's how you get canceled.
Okay, don't actually do that.
I agree, please do not do that.
Don't bankrupt your family.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But you're right, though, so you do have to love
the work.
Right, you got to love theprocess, and if you don't, then
you're going to have a bad time.
Right, you're gonna have tofigure.
It's like you're French fryingwhen you're supposed to pizza.
You know you're gonna have abad time, so you want to make
sure that you're cognizant ofthat.
Now, having said that, right,let's say you either a determine
that I need more money just tolive, or B I, you know you
(32:40):
figure out that I do want tohave a luxurious retirement and
I want to have money to go onvacation this year as opposed to
waiting until retirement Cool.
Now your question is how do Imaximize the amount of money I
make?
Golden handcuffs can seem likethe best way to make the most
money, and maybe it is.
Maybe.
I will give you an example.
(33:00):
We had a friend of ours that weknow that went to work for a
tech company.
He worked with us at adifferent tech company, went to
work at another tech company andthey gave him some stock when
he started.
They gave him about $100,000worth of stock as RSUs, like we
talked about earlier restrictedstock units.
Turns out the company didreally well and those RSUs ended
(33:22):
up being worth eight times asmuch as when he got hired, and
they gave him more RSUs a fewyears later, and so he had a
ridiculous package at that pointand he truly felt handcuffed,
like he cannot leave becausethere's just way too much money.
And he has a family, he's gotkids.
He wants to make sure his kidscan go to college.
He's able to pay for everything.
He has a family.
He's got kids.
He wants to make sure his kidscan go to college.
(33:42):
He's able to pay for everything.
So there is a moment where maybe, if it's stock-based golden
handcuffs and the stock doesreally well, it can be really
difficult, right, although thereis a tipping point even there,
in that direction also.
I'll give you an example NVIDIAhas recently gone on a tear.
If you don't know, nvidia makesgraphics cards, or what used to
(34:03):
be specifically graphics cards.
They're now just generalized asGPUs, and the reason is because
, although they were initiallymade for computer graphics,
turns out they're really goodfor AI and so they've been
powering the AI boom, and soNVIDIA's stock has gone up
ridiculously.
I don't even know what thepercent is, but it is a lot.
At any rate, one in two NVIDIAemployees is a millionaire, and
(34:26):
I think it's something like onein five has a net worth of over
25 million now.
And I'm talking about allemployees across the board, so
just imagine that.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That is crazy, that is nuts.
Yeah yeah, exactly to yourpoint.
It's like those people have tofeel handcuffed, like this is so
much money, why are youchanging money?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So whatever restricted stock units are still
on the clock.
If they quit, they're leavingthat on the table, right, like
they're walking away from thatmuch money and it's not exactly
guaranteed money because you canget fired.
If you get fired, right, youdon't have access to those RSUs
anymore, right?
So it's a risk to stay,potentially because you could
still get fired or somethinglike that, you know, laid off,
(35:13):
whatever.
It is right.
But every time you're lookingat the equation of doing
something else that is now partof the equation, the calculation
.
That's tough, right.
But here's what I'll say, right, and that's that this is advice
I gave to somebody recently.
They didn't necessarily have alot of RSUs on the line.
They were just looking at whatwas the best move for their
career, because they got anoffer from another company and
their company they're at rightnow had just gone through a lot
of changes, but the changes,from their perspective, could be
(35:36):
good.
They didn't know, right, sothey were on the fence.
This is what I told them.
Right, is that where you areright now, you're betting on
that company to figure out thosemajor changes.
So staying is betting on thecompany to do well, leaving into
this new role where you'regoing to be in a more dynamic
position.
You're going to be in thedriver's seat.
More is betting on yourself.
(35:56):
So staying with the existingcompany, betting on that company
to do well, going and exploringthe market and doing something
else potentially, is betting onyourself, and I would argue that
if you're the type of personthat is confident they're going
to do well in the corporateworld, I would recommend betting
on yourself every chance youget.
That doesn't mean leave thecompany you're at, but it does
mean make sure that you knowwhat your options are so that
(36:18):
when it comes time for reviews,for promotions, for whatever,
you understand what your valueis right and you can have that
conversation confidently withoutbeing a jerk.
I'm not talking about being ajerk to anybody.
In fact, I don't recommendburning bridges, really anywhere
but be able to confidentlyexplore the labor market, know
your value and then come backand have that conversation
(36:40):
efficiently, even if you end upstaying.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, absolutely, you know it's interesting,
absolutely it's interesting.
This book, the Subtle Art ofNot Giving an F, it kind of
indicates and I haven't read ina long time so you might have to
remind me that you take emotionout of the equation.
And let's face it, humans areemotional beings and so, as I
think about this as a peopleleader, you know, I tell my
(37:05):
employees all the time like, hey, if you're not happy here, tell
me.
And if truly we can't solvewhatever, whatever it is it's
not making you happy.
You know the thing you'reworking on, the amount of money
you're making, whatever it is,then I'll support you and
recommend you to go elsewherebecause it's better for you.
And I tell my employees that allthe time, and it always gives
them a shock because they'relike, so you're not saying
(37:25):
you're going to like beg to keepme and you know, please don't
leave.
I'm like no, because I want thebest for you and I believe if
we're doing important work andif we're doing work that I
believe in, that you'll want tostay for those reasons, as long
as we can compensate you rightand, you know, put you on the
right project, give you theright work-life balance,
whatever it is that you value,and so I'm curious from you know
(37:49):
your perspective of the booklike how do you keep emotion in
it while also being able to make, I guess, pragmatic decisions
that are not fueled by emotion?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
So so, to be fair, the book like if, if, if, I mean
I don't want to spoil it, but Iguess it doesn't matter.
It's like if, if, if, I mean Idon't want to spoil it, but I
guess it doesn't matter.
It's a self-help book, right?
So ultimately, there's nospoilers.
Reading it again is only goingto help you sharpen this off,
right, so there's no spoilers.
The this the book is titled thesubtle art of not giving an f,
but, realistically, it's thesubtle art of caring about what
matters.
(38:16):
That's actually what the realmoral of the book is, and so it
isn't necessarily to deleteemotion.
It's to make sure that anytimeyou're engaging in a decision
process for anything, either foryourself or for others, to make
sure you understand what'simportant and you work backwards
from that, right.
And so, to that end, right?
I would argue that what you'redoing in that conversation with
(38:40):
your employees and what youremployees should be doing in
that conversation with you isboth of you should be coming to
an agreement about what's thebest path forward, right?
And what that's going to do isit's going to ensure that the
team that you're running isproductive, because if one
person stays and they're unhappy, that's worse than them leaving
(39:01):
and being happy somewhere else.
So even if you're talking aboutjust from a selfish point of
view and, by the way, I agreewith you as a human that you're
doing the right thing as just agood human, so I love it when
things can align but even ifyou're looking at purely as a
cold-blooded evil capitalist,it's the right thing to do right
, and this is where bad leadersdon't.
(39:24):
This is where bad leaders getin their own way Right.
I'll give you one quick example.
I heard a good story a fewmonths back.
I was in some leadershiptraining and they mentioned that
A players hire A players, bplayers hire C players, and, and
so that realization like Idon't know why.
(39:45):
I'd never put that together insuch a succinct way.
But think about it.
People who are B players areprobably insecure about their
job, about their position, aboutwho they are.
What they want to do is theywant to hire people they can
keep under their thumb so theycan try to make themselves look
better.
But A players are confident,they're doing the right things,
(40:06):
they're making the right movesand they want to hire people
that are going to get promoted,because that's a team overall
that's going to do.
Well, if the team sees thattheir peers are getting promoted
, they're going to continue tobe happy at where they are
because they think I can do thesame, and that's a good thing,
right.
Additionally, a playersrecognize that if you hire
(40:29):
someone, you cultivate them, youhelp nurture them and they get
promoted.
You now have a peer that is anally also a good thing, right,
and so it's a win all around.
And, by the way, if you happento be a shareholder because
maybe you're lucky enough tohave some golden handcuffs
hiring and developing more Aplayers in your company is going
(40:49):
to enrich you, literally,because the stock price is going
to go up, because your companyis more productive.
So this is a virtuous cycle ofwinning by hiring good people,
but insecure people hire peoplewho they view as less than
themselves on purpose, right.
And so what you described is youbeing an A player, and I'm not
here to give you a pat on theback because you know you
(41:11):
probably already know you'redoing the right thing, but I'm
just calling out the mechanicsof it, right, Because that was,
I guess, ultimately yourquestion, right, about how you
bring that in.
Yeah, and you just have to lookat what is the optimal play
here?
And the optimal play is ifsomeone's unhappy, let's dissect
that and figure out how to makethem happy within the
constraints of what is available.
(41:32):
And what I mean by that issometimes you can't give them.
Let's say they deserve a$40,000 a year raise, but you
just don't have the budget togive it to them.
Okay, what else can we do?
And if the answer is we can'tdo anything, then yeah, how can
I help you and I'm not trying tokick you out, I don't want you
to leave, I actually like you onour team but how can I help you
(41:52):
make the next step to where youcan get what you deserve,
because unfortunately, I can'tgive it to you?
Here Again, I'm not kicking youout, I'm not threatening to
fire None of that.
In fact, quite the opposite.
I'd love to keep you.
I just I know I can't give youthat money, but I'm willing to
help work with you and get youthe skills you need to get to
that next level somewhere else,if that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, exactly, and it's so funny.
A couple of years ago I had anemployee she was a rock star and
that's exactly what happened.
I'm like I can't get you themoney you want, and I know
that's what you want and sheended up getting another job.
Funny enough, they were private, they went public.
She got a nice little payoutworked out for everybody and
(42:32):
she's really, really happy.
So I think to your point, youknow that's that's exactly the
type of culture you want tocreate and the opportunity cost
of staying versus going andlooking at what you value.
And you know my my last kind oftwo thoughts.
You know I mentioned thisperson before on the podcast,
but a buddy of mine, you know,as we look at his CAC, his
compensation is the thing hecares about.
He cares about, you know hewants to retire in 10 years, so
he's like I need to make as muchmoney as possible, as fast as
(42:53):
possible, so I can just not haveto work for the remainder of my
life, and so he's not rude inany way, but he's very specific
and, I guess, intentional aboutthe way he works, that he's not
going to do something if it'snot going to lead him to more
money, meaning a promotion,meaning a raise, meaning a sales
target.
If it's a, hey, someone needsto update the wiki.
(43:16):
So our team onboarding is goingto be better.
He typically opts out becausehe's like I could spend that
time on a sales call instead.
And so to your point about thelonger term vision.
Sure does it help the companyif you onboard people really
well and you have a good process?
Sure, but he's probably notgoing to stick around at that
company more than two yearsbecause he knows he can get a
raise somewhere else toultimately get more money.
(43:38):
So it's kind of funny to yourpoint.
It's evaluating what are yourgoals.
It does go back to that.
You know.
First, principles, what are youtrying to achieve in life, what
do you value, and then makingsure what you're doing now is
actually in line with that.
I think the last note that isjust on top of my mind is to say
you have to evaluate yoursituation to exactly what you
(44:00):
said earlier, alex.
It's what are my constraintsaround me, that I'm working with
?
I have a mortgage, I have afamily, I have responsibilities,
I need to take care of Somethings you can't sacrifice
unless you're okay, potentiallydamaging those things, and so
you need to make sure whateverplan you put together when
you're determining whether thegolden handcuffs are real and
(44:20):
you need to stay, you knowsupports, whatever your end
goals are, and you can't just goand make the jump to a
struggling musician for the next10 years if you need to pay
bills and you know yourconstraints and you're like
that's just not going to workfor my lifestyle.
So I think to your point aboutthe book and some of the I guess
, overall themes is evaluateyour current situation,
(44:44):
understand if you can truly be arock star and then work
backwards from there and realizethe sacrifices or the
opportunity cost of doing thethings that would take to be a
rock star and then workbackwards from there and realize
the sacrifices or theopportunity cost of doing the
things that would take to be arock star are not going to work
with my lifestyle.
So now I can just move awayfrom what I was thinking and
what I idealized to a morerealistic goal which in the end
will make you happier anyway.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Any last notes no, I completely agree.
I think you summed itmed it up.
So yeah, begin with the end inmind and figure out what you can
do to get there yeah and maybeit's not viable right now.
The other.
The last thing I would say isjust, if it's not value
available to you right now,that's okay.
Re-evaluate in the future.
You should check in withyourself on a regular basis,
right, so that evaluationprocess isn't one and done.
(45:30):
Keep reevaluating what youroptions are, more or less
constantly, if you can.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah absolutely yeah.
And just to give a personalanecdote too, is you know, for
me, coming from my background,the golden handcuffs were real
for a while.
But when I took that step back afew years ago and I looked at
what I want to do eventually Iwould love to start my own
company and work for myself, andI think with that I know now's
(45:57):
not the time my wife and I satdown and talked about it and
there's certain financial goalsthat we want to hit in order to
kind of feel that freedom ortake that risk, if you will.
So we've evaluated theopportunity cost of staying
where we are for a little while,hitting those financial goals
and then being willing to take arisk.
But we're on the same pagetogether about what that looks
like, what the timeline lookslike, and so it makes it easier
to go through your day-to-dayknowing I have a plan.
(46:18):
I know when this is going tohappen Situations could change,
but if things remain static,this is going to be the goal to
get to where I want to go.
And so I think yourealistically have to do that if
you have a partner, plan withyour partner and make sure that
you guys are on the same pagefor whatever you're kind of
planning, if it does impact yourlifestyle.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Smart.
One reason you may want to jumpship is because of all the
sludge at work.
It happens to be something of ameme in the what Do you Meme
channel, if you want to go overit.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Oh boy.
Well, the question is do youwant to do it?
Do I throw this on you becauseyou're the guest, or do you want
me to do it?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Uh, I don't care either way.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
All right, I want to hear you do it, because you're
so articulate.
I would love to hear yourrendition of this.
What do you mean?
We explain visual memes in avoice articulated format.
It's great podcast material.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So, alex, take us, take us away yeah, so this meme
happens to be in the form of aof a gif, and I want to clarify
it is graphics, it is notgraphics.
So, bruce, you were 100incorrect.
It is gif and always has been.
But anyway, it's a gift, it'sanimated and in this instance,
(47:29):
there appears to be a superhero,and this superhero is feeling
pangs of betrayal as he floatsin a green river of sludge, he
laments his sorry state.
He says my eyes, the goggles donothing, and realistically, I
feel like this is a commentaryon life.
It says my eyes, the goggles donothing, and realistically, I
(47:52):
feel like this is a commentaryon life.
This is coming from a verynihilistic individual indicating
that, it's true, in life, thegoggles do nothing, although I
think the gif actually saysnogles.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
I think it says nogles.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, which it's supposed to be goggles, but I
think this particular gift saysgoggles, but it was a commentary
on the sludge of corpo life anduh, I, I personally am here for
it.
Well done, individualcontributor awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Well done to you for doing that so well and, yeah,
individual contributor, forsubmitting your meme, as always.
You can always jump into ourdiscord and submit your memes
too if you want to hear usexplain them.
And guess what?
We're going to make Bruce do itwhen he comes back because he
missed an episode.
So we have to punish him.
So he is going to be next upand we've got to give him some
really good ones for him to runthrough and explain with his
(48:43):
mouth parts.
Don't want to miss it.
Other than that, I, we, we hitit all.
We did a.
What do you mean?
We have episodes, we had news,we had awesome stories, we had
awesome dialogue, we had ourguest on.
This was a banger of an episode.
So thank you, alex, for comingon and thank you everybody who's
listening.
Please share us.
Jump into that link tree justby scrolling down your podcast
(49:06):
player of choice and clickingthe link.
You can go to our website tosubmit a topic.
You can one click to join thediscord, where you can play
things like what do you mean,where you can see the things
that Alex posted, like the videoon Arizona tea or the graph
bringing the hey job hoppingversus staying current company
compensation together.
You can only do that in thediscord, so click that link,
(49:26):
join the discord.
We've got people joining allthe time.
Conversation's great and share.
That's.
The biggest thing you can dofor us is share Anything else.
Alex, any last words?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
I think you summed it up well and I appreciate it
being here.
Thanks, clark.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Absolutely All right.
Everybody that wraps up thisepisode and what's the right
corporatism that we can useright?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
here Bruce is way better at this Until the fat
lady sings.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We'll see you next time You're on mute.
You're on mute, see you.
This is awkward when bruceisn't here, everything just
(50:19):
falls apart.
I can't kick craig out.
Oh wait, wait, one of us can doit all.
Right, this is the real goodbye, bye.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.