November 4, 2025 • 29 mins
Is Amazon's Automation Revolution Coming for Your Job? The Truth About AI, Robotics, and the Future of Work
Amazon plans to automate 75% of its operations by 2027—avoiding the need to hire 160,000 workers. But what does this warehouse automation revolution really mean for the workforce, the economy, and startup opportunities?
In this episode, we dive deep into Amazon's aggressive robotics and AI automation strategy, examining whether job displacement from technology is different this time. With unemployment at 4.3%, history shows that technology creates as many jobs as it destroys—but the speed of AI adoption is unprecedented.
We explore:
- Amazon's $750M+ investment in warehouse robotics and automation technology
- Why job quality matters more than job quantity in the automation debate
- The competitive pressure forcing companies toward AI and robotics
- Real opportunities for logistics startups in warehouse automation
- How blue-collar workers can navigate the future of work
Whether you're worried about job losses from automation or excited about the next wave of innovation in logistics technology, this conversation breaks down what Amazon's automation plans mean for workers, competitors, and entrepreneurs.
Plus: Why we still need teleportation technology (seriously?)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What? What are we supposed to do here?
Are we supposed to say no, Amazon, that's bad, You
shouldn't innovate. Yeah, they're gonna deliver a
ton of value to consumers. I think all of a sudden there's
that they could potentially be alot more cost competitive
because that's the way Amazon's gonna beat other players in this
market, right? And so they're going to want to
drive prices down so that they can be the option of choice.
(00:21):
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas.
Money folding, hustle. Smart dream.
So why turn that grind into a joy?
Ride. Important that the studio
audience knows that this is alsoour exhaustion episode as today
(00:43):
is Tuesday. We're filming here on Tuesday,
October 28th. Last night was the Blue Jays,
the Dodgers was it 18 inning 18 inning marathon game.
So like 2 baseball games and one.
I fell asleep at 2:00 in the morning.
Chris left my house at one in the.
Morning. But because we're shooting this
(01:05):
in advance, I just want to say congratulations to the Toronto
Blue Jays on winning the World Series.
That is fantastic. It's a bold prediction, you.
After last night, after the well, you know what, like we
played our beat team because basically our B team played a
whole game, played nine innings.Was was basically like was we
have all our position players almost were swapped out.
(01:27):
They played pretty well. Like they just didn't quite
score. They were, really.
Close their strategy. Give Shohei Ohtani the four
fingered salute. Yeah, every time.
Yeah. What if he like, it's the
Hackett Shack, but just, you know, the, the walk, the walk,
the Otani, you know what I mean?Just take the bat out of his
hands. Yeah, always.
Well, I mean, he's, he'll be pitching this evening, right?
(01:49):
Yeah. So that's gonna be just weird
too. Yeah.
But I really hope we messed him up.
I think that would be very satisfying after the last game.
But anyway, whatever. I mean, we will because we're
gonna win the World Series. Congratulations again, Toronto
Blues. Alright, Chris, what are we
doing here today? Alright.
We're talking about Amazon's robot revolution.
Ooh. Regular robots or sex robots?
(02:11):
I think they're actually not even calling them robots.
They're gonna call them cobots. OHS.
They're like they're with you while you're.
Working OHT yeah, right. For sure.
That that's what everybody. Well, two things.
That's what everybody wants first.
Secondly is you're totally gonnabe there for a long time if a
robot is doing exactly what you do.
Alright, So should we set the table?
Yes. OK.
(02:31):
So Amazon internal documents reveal plans automate
approximately 75% of operations.Fulfillment operations, right?
Yeah. So avoiding the need to hire
160,000 workers by 2027 which islike next two years and avoiding
more than 600,000 by 2033. What else is important about
(02:52):
2033? They aim to sell twice as much
without adding any people. Thanks.
OK. Yeah.
So like that's that was the thing to me where I was like,
yeah, OK. So, yeah, so like they've
obviously gotten some blowback on this because I think the this
information like leaked that this wasn't like supposed to get
(03:13):
out. I'm sure Trump must absolutely
love this, right? But anyway, so apparently Amazon
is they're trying to get their staff to avoid terms like
automation and AI in favour of like advanced technology.
I mean this is. Just like yeah, you.
Cobots. And yeah, this is just crap.
Yeah, Yeah. That's like marketing spin on
like, hey, we're gonna fire a lot of you and ideally we don't
(03:35):
have any of you. Yeah, but here's what we're
trying to do. Apparently they have one of
their newer facilities, Shreveport, LA, it actually cars
because of robots that requires 25% fewer, hmm, regular workers
and that that same warehouse, they planned to cut it to 50% of
the workers that they started with.
So that's pretty interesting. And unfortunately there's also
(04:00):
this issue that most of the Amazon employees that are
probably going to be subject to having their jobs lost are also
black or interesting, you know, so not a great situation for for
that for them. So obviously some scary stuff,
yeah. What's your couple things?
I also read that that that Louisiana facility and what does
(04:23):
it Shreveport or whatever, you just report Shreveport
apparently. I believe they had a CFL team
for a brief. What?
Yeah. Really.
Yeah. What were they?
Called. I can't remember, I'll have to
listen. Out for Shreve Shreve,
Shreveport Shivers. Apparently there are gonna be 40
more sites that are gonna copy that model by 2027.
(04:43):
Yeah, they're gonna do that. Everywhere I mean this makes
sense. So this is OK.
So I think I have a couple of different thoughts, like similar
but different. My hot take off the top is good.
OK, so like, obviously like if you, if you ever actually seen a
video of what it looks like in an Amazon where it's highly
automated anyway, they have thislike Roomba thing.
Yeah, the hockey puck. The hockey puck goes around and
it carries like huge stacks and it like move stuff around and
(05:04):
whatever. Yeah, like takes it to the
workers that are packing this stuff rather than the workers
having to go to the shelf to getthe item.
Like this is a the, the, this isa company that's already focused
on innovation. And, and also they were saying
something that like the, the functional element of this
automation is that you can, they're going to save something
like $0.30 a package, which is enormous.
(05:26):
Yeah, right. That's a huge amount of savings
by doing this. And not to mention all the
headaches and all the other things that they don't have to
deal with, frankly, by having a lot of staff like coming down
on. That makes sense.
Yeah. So I think fundamentally what
we're seeing is the transformation of Amazon from
like a net like job creator to what's the opposite of job, like
destroyer. Almost I I think they're just
(05:48):
talking about like stopping hiring.
Like I think actually they were in the warehouse like attrition
and they just weren't gonna rehire as.
They yeah, that's right. Yeah.
They're not like, they're not like going on a big firing spree
here. They.
Weren't sending out pink slips, I don't think.
I think what it was was just natural, you know, contraction
of their workforce, not rehiringand implementing more robots to
to do. It so like finishing my thought
(06:09):
though, like what it looks like in the warehouse.
So, so they got, they got all these robots doing things
already and then they they the person basically what happens is
the person stands at a desk and a label comes up.
They grab the label, they look at it, they grab the right size
box, the item is there. They put the item in, they put
the they can do the tape on it really quickly, and then they
(06:30):
put on a variable. Anyway, that's the human
intervention at this time. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's something about the
sorting of these like different size boxes.
Like that's, that's at least oneof the at least one of the forms
of human automation in these warehouses and probably in the
more legacy ones. So to me, like this is not
surprising. This is the way of the future.
We've already talked about even on this show, a lot about how,
you know, AI is coming, but alsoin the form of AI robotics.
(06:52):
So like, which is sort of beyondjust the automation we're
talking about here. Yeah.
Being kind of see that there's going to be a lot of different
forms of downward pressure on both blue collar and white
collar jobs. And this is one of the examples
that you think also of like Tesla and like all the stuff we
talked about in terms of their robots and what they want to do
and the optimist thing. And it's sort of like, yeah,
this is a different but like similar feeling, sort of
(07:15):
progression was actually talkingto her dad, Papa Sinkinson never
called him Papa, but he and he was like, you know, I remember
in like the 80s or whatever, when in Japan there all the car
automation was starting to like be created by robots as well.
And there was a similar feeling,oh, wow, it's going to destroy
all these jobs. And like, yeah, it does.
And these are all functions of like, cost competitiveness.
(07:36):
Amazon is also in a more competitive market in the United
States now. Like there's a lot of different
forces, you know, whether it's team or whatever, though team is
like probably dealing a little bit with like the whole, what's
it called, the minimum. Exception the minus.
The minimum, yeah, dealing. With, I don't think that exists
anymore. It does get rid of.
It I think so that's why I understand and so that kind of
sucks for them, right, because the whole shop like a
(07:57):
billionaire thing and then and then there's also tick tock
shop. There's other things putting
downward pressure on them for ifI'm Amazon, this is like, this
is part of staying competitive. Alright, so we're startup
different. I'm gonna take a different view
than you on this. So you're you're saying this is
gonna have like unemployment is gonna go way up, this is gonna
be a major disruptor and stuff like that.
(08:17):
So what I want to say is the most paradoxical thing ever, OK?
Technology isn't new, huh? Do you hear what I say?
Technology isn't new, which is totally paradoxical because
technology is always new, right?It's new tech.
Like something new came out. That's technology.
OK, right. But I'm gonna say the concept of
technology is not new. We have had technology changing
(08:41):
our lives forever. OK, Uh, So what I wanna put out
there is I, I, I, I did some research and I said, hey, what
has the traditional like historical unemployment rate
been? And I went back 100 years.
OK, wow. So from some.
Of the data, that's no, no, no, I did some.
Research. Yeah.
So I went from, I was looking for like, I couldn't get data.
(09:03):
I found data From 1948 to 2020, the historical average
unemployment rate in the United States was 5.8%.
On average from on average. OK.
Just sort of average a day, OK, OK.
As of August 2025, the unemployment rate stands at 4.3.
Yeah, it's pretty good. I I did know that actually in
the. United States.
Yeah. So what?
What's crazy, though, is that we've had technological
(09:26):
advancement. You were talking about Dad being
in the warehouse and in Japan making photocopiers back in the
80s and everything. I don't.
Nobody's going to have a job anymore.
Yeah. And then and then, like the
Internet revolution happens and nobody's gonna have a job
anymore. Yeah, OK.
And now we're already a few years into the AI thing, and
people seem to be. Still employed, if anything,
(09:48):
like one of the biggest net employers is the AI companies
themselves. Yeah, just like weird.
Yeah, but weirdly, that doesn't fill me with confidence.
But anyway. But yeah, OK.
But I, I think one of the, the myths, OHS, we love myths here
is that, you know, technology, like it definitely displaces
people. People lose their jobs, but they
(10:09):
find other jobs and they do other things that are more
interesting. What I thought was really
interesting was apparently in 1910, 31% of workers were in
farm occupations. In nine in 1910, OK, it went
down to about 27% by 1920 and today it's less than 1%.
(10:30):
Yeah, it's all the mega farms, Right, right, right.
Because of automation and that sort of stuff.
But again, unemployment rate 4.3.
OK. OK, OK, So what I'm trying to
say is jobs are lost, but other jobs are created.
OK, people move from farming twoworking on AI companies.
I'm sure it's a straight line path to do that.
(10:53):
But you know what? Pitchfork.
You know. You've been shoveling crap in
the stable, kid Anthropic. Because they're shoveling crap
and you have no idea how much. Waste these AI data centres
produce they need today. Unfortunately, it's nuclear
waste, but. I sold my business for $40
(11:17):
million and I want you to steal my ideas.
Check out my book Startup Different on Amazon, Audible and
Kindle. OK, OK, OK, so alright, so
that's that's my take. OK, blow me up.
Go after. That no, it's pretty good.
So I will say on the, the, so there's nuance to it.
(11:39):
It's so like not cut and dry andI think you kind of alluded to
it. The first thing I'll say,
though, I do partially agree, which I agree with the concept
that if you look back on history, you what you're saying
is 100% accurate. There's circumstances there was
I can't remember the guys name, but there was like a a
contemporary in the 1901 look, I'm gonna get this wrong, but 19
tens, 1920s, nineteen 30s who was like, we're gonna run out of
(12:02):
food. Yeah, we're not gonna have
enough food for for the number of people on earth.
Did the math, just did the math on the on the population growth
and did the math on the efficiency of like per yield of
harvest, whatever. And So what happened?
We did we had a bunch of innovation.
We created, you know, new combines.
We had new kinds of green, we had new kinds of pesticides
where harvests and we like quadrupled our output and hey,
(12:24):
guess what? Plants to everybody's fine.
They have enough food on the planet right now to feed
everyone. It's just not well distributed,
right. That's why there are some people
who unfortunately face like famine.
But on the other hand, there's like societies that have a ton
of food, like those in Western societies.
So. So what am I getting at here is
like there's always like this fear that, yeah, like something
this like potential very negative outcome, but you know,
(12:47):
it, it tends to be sort of mitigated like nothing.
Another another way to think about this is nothing is as bad
or as good as people portray it.Generally it's in the middle, as
is one of my feeling on this. So if we come to this
circumstance, so you're trying to make the argument that the
these jobs that will be lost, these people will find other
jobs and those other jobs could potentially be better.
(13:08):
And I would be interested more in trying to understand the
quality of life of those people because the job is not a job is
not a job. So if if I go and I'm like,
maybe you have this data, I think you're a little pumped.
Yeah, Hang on. I got.
It you're on my counter argumentbullet 2 right now, so.
What you. Let me know when I can jump
back. In this is horseshit, you
(13:30):
actually got the counter arguments.
Yeah, wow. I I.
Cut the show. This is crap anyway, so no
pressure, but I'm really excitednow to see if I could do your AI
bet your research, quote UN quote.
So I OK, so so these people might have been making X amount
work market out of warehouse probably like 1920 bucks an hour
(13:53):
or something like that. I I think it's roughly what it
is. It's probably on average.
And so they're making that, but then they have to get a new job
or they have to retrain, which has a few years of cost to it
plus then going to a new job, making the same or less.
You know, once you factor all this in, it's obvious it's
probably net negative. But I don't necessarily know
(14:13):
that. And I think there is also a lot
of, you know, we take certain things for granted, like the the
cost to move from one city to the next, the cost to go to
retraining, the cost to do thesesorts of things as material.
And it's not always feasible like some people for because of
financial reasons, they can't just move out of their town,
right, right. So, so it's a little bit more
complicated, but go ahead and continue with your AI driven.
(14:35):
Argument really well, you got numbers 2 and 3.
Bullet points. Cool, so job quality concerns.
So yeah, you have a fancy job, white collar doing awesome
stuff, and you can't quickly. Replace.
Real deal with something. Simple why people freak out with
AI because they don't see the next job and they what they they
probably get pretty good money right now.
Yeah, exactly. So that is scary making 150 a
(14:58):
year. We could benefits.
We are in that white colour category as well, so I'm feeling
the heat as well. Especially as a software
developer, you know that's pretty.
Cushy job. I feel bad I'm I'm less into
vibe coding right now but we cantalk about that right around.
OK, cool. OK.
The other thing you talked aboutwas transition costs.
So yeah, it's definitely not like you can easily move from
(15:21):
your existing job, your existingwhite collar job to something
else. So that's the the transition
piece, the retraining piece thatcan cause it's going to cost.
Me the cost you cost people timeand it and often it also costs
taxpayers money. Just for what it's worth, but
and then so the last counter argument I have to my thesis.
So. So you're offering the counter
argument. Yeah, no, I'm gonna blow up my
(15:43):
my own argument. Interesting.
So the the whole idea that this time is different, OK.
And I think when you think aboutwhy the AI technology and what
it's doing to our economy, why this time is different, is the
speed at which it's happening and the people that it's
affecting. OK.
So in the past it was low end jobs, jobs that people didn't
(16:06):
really wanna do. Now it's the like, it's the
intelligent people that are being displaced by the AI.
Theoretically, right? I don't think we've seen a ton
of displacement yet, but it's onthe horizon if it's.
Gonna happen. And then of course, this wasn't
a thing three years ago, like 2022 was kind of when they
started to get some traction. And so like in three years this
(16:28):
is really revolutionized the waythat businesses are operating.
We're see it happening all over the place.
So that's the scary piece is that, you know, all that stuff
farming automation, you know, robots that happen in the 80s,
that sort of stuff. But this feels different.
You know, is, is the fundamentalcrux of my main counter argument
that maybe I know what we are building our business.
(16:50):
What worked for us when we were three employees, 4 employees did
not work for us when we were like 8-9 employees.
Just hilarious. Kind of had to reinvent
ourselves. Not that big.
Company, but it's like such a change so quickly.
Right. But so sometimes what has
happened in the past isn't a good indicator of what's gonna
happen in the future. So in this case, I, I kind of
think we might be in that category where it's happening so
(17:12):
fast and it is so fundamental that people that it's affecting
that, that this may not be the one that happens the way the
other. Let's come back to let's come
back to the though. I like that and I think that's
probably true. And I think as a broader topic
on AI like which I'm sure we'll,we'll probably talk about this
in another episode, but I think that's like as AI affecting
employment, that's really good, nice.
(17:34):
And like the speed and the singularity ads like this other
like objective fear of the unknown.
But when we come back to the warehouse for a second.
So let's consider for for a moment, are these jobs worth
protecting? Yeah, right.
So this is the thing I, I, I struggle with, right?
Because by all accounts, these are kind of shitty jobs.
(17:56):
Yeah, right. And, you know, you mind you like
you gotta make money and go whatever.
And I'm not trying to deny people opportunity.
And sometimes you gotta take thejob that's available.
And I understand that. But, you know, is there
something else we can do with these people that uses, you
know, probably what is their unique intelligence and
experience and education and allthat stuff to, to do something
(18:20):
maybe more meaningful? Yeah.
Like, like it feels kind of likethese should be automated jobs.
Yeah. And I'm not, again, I'm not
trying to get people fired or something.
And there's probably a human element where there is value
added by the employees, of course.
But I, I just kind of feel like it's pretty limited, you know?
It kind of reminds me a few episodes back we talked about
(18:41):
the Canada Post Labour. Just doesn't remind me of this.
And, you know, like everybody always says, well, I is great at
doing the things that people don't wanna do.
And automation, you know, like people don't wanna do these
jobs. And you see like labour
disruptions and they're saying these jobs are, you know, tough
and we've hard work and they don't like the jobs and, and
they want more money to do thosesame jobs, but they're not
(19:02):
really complicated. And and you kind of have those
moments where you're like, maybethis isn't a job that people
want to do. Yeah.
And this is a good candidate forautomation AI.
The only way we can get people to do these jobs is by paying
them a lot, right, Right. Which is interesting because in
(19:22):
the in the white collar world, you get paid a lot for the most
intellectually complex or like leadership level demanding work,
right. And strategic as opposed to like
work that you hate. Right.
You know what I mean? Like, this is kind of this weird
thing on the low end of the job market where it's like all the
jobs are terrible. Yeah.
And you wanna be a garbage man. Like, I don't think anybody
(19:42):
grows up being like, well, maybelike some little kids cause cute
as hell, but see, like, but you know, I don't think many of them
grow up being like, I want to bea garbage man.
But then you look at garbage people like it paid like, you
know, pretty well, like 100 hundred K, 120 maybe, yeah,
'cause I gotta pick up the garbage, yeah.
So like. There's another example of
automation where now like the trucks just have the arm that
grabs the thing and chucks it inthe back and off it goes to.
(20:05):
Self driving, self driving vehicles that you can see that
what happened, it was like a startup called Auto.
I think they got sued by somebody, but it was the whole
concept was a truck that drives themselves like like a big 18
Wheelers. Oh yeah.
But I think they were like with the Tesla getting in an
accident. But you can see the longer term
path that probably being realistic.
Automation is for sure, for sure.
(20:25):
But anyway, so the, I guess coming back to this is like,
yeah, it sucks with these people.
But I also think that if you're the job that you're working and
if you can kind of see that thiscould obviously be perhaps
automated or large portions of it automated and you understand
that you have worked for a big company that's always like their
business model is essentially focused on cost reduction, then
(20:45):
it's kind of like, well, this ismaybe not a great gig.
Yeah. And if you're in these spaces,
then you should be maybe maybe while you're still employed,
you're thinking about retrainingat night.
Yeah. You know, you're doing night
school and stuff. I don't know.
I know this is a big ask, but like, I guess, I guess the point
is, like, what? What are we supposed to do here?
Are we supposed to say, no, Amazon, that's bad.
(21:06):
You shouldn't innovate. Yeah, they're going to deliver a
ton of value to consumers. I think all of a sudden, there's
that they could potentially be alot more cost competitive
because that's the way Amazon's gonna beat other players in this
market. Right.
And so they're going to want to drive places down, yeah, so that
they can be the option of choiceand so or speed up delivery.
Alright, so let me throw anotherangle on this at you in the
(21:27):
last, you know, few minutes of this.
Episode rolling angle throw that.
Angle. Just just do it.
Turn a phrase. Here's the here's the angle.
Alright, what do you do if you're Walmart?
The same thing. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.
It's like, I read about this toofor this, for this episode, and
it was as soon as one of them figures this out, they're all
(21:48):
going to do it. Yeah, right.
Yeah. So I think like Walmart is
probably pretty automated, probably not dissimilar to what
Amazon is doing. Yeah.
And I think they're like, well, let's just keep doing that
because they also, they especially Walmart needs to be
cost competitive, right. So that doesn't surprise me like
at all. So I think, yeah, that's so
like, look, if you're a warehouse worker, like you might
(22:10):
not have a job in five to 10 years, right?
Or like it's the writings on thewall.
They're looking to get rid of you.
Yeah, you know. And it's a toughie like they
might not be looking to get rid of you, but if you quit they are
probably not replacing. It tell you what, maybe you're
your opportunity lies in being like a mechanical engineer.
Yeah, actually that is one of those things that the spin that
(22:30):
that Amazon is trying to put on it is like, hey, we're going to
need all these high-end like engineers to go, but like.
It's a fraction, a tiny fractionof the number of like employees
they need. At a warehouse, yeah.
Yeah, should be paid more, yes, you know, but.
The thing too is for a lot of tax stuff.
I don't know about you, but likeit.
Once you got it figured out you you can you can replicate that
attack. Pretty easily, yeah.
(22:51):
You just have a stable of backuphockey pucks that go out and
it's like 01 brochure. They did this already, but it
goes, yeah. I can't imagine you imagine
being like OHT, like there's a asingle point of failure and an
Amazon house. Like there's no way.
There's no way there's redundancies built into that
whole thing. Yeah, exactly.
They can't not deliver your thing in the day.
So alright, another angle. What do you do if you're a small
(23:13):
startup, like when you're tryingto compete with, you know, like
let's say you're a small companyand you've got your own like
warehouse and all of a sudden you're competing with Amazon
that has robots packing and picking and packing every
single. Product, yeah, you gotta do it
too like, but I think like, OK, there's a few categories here.
So there's Amazon, the the flagship of warehouse
(23:35):
management, like incredible logistics.
After that you have the three PL. market, right, which is all.
There's a bajillion 3 PL. guys. They're doing this for sure.
They're gonna have to go down this path.
Yeah, there's no way they couldn't for the same reasons
that they wanna offer as the waythey beat Amazon is they're less
expensive to hold the merchandise and they're less
(23:56):
expensive on the fulfillment. But they don't have the
marketplace, right? Amazon is the front facing
marketplace as well. If you want to be Prime, you
have to be in the Amazon warehouse.
Yeah, but often what people do is they put a little bit of
inventory in Amazon and then a lot of inventory in a three PL.
as well. So they get Prime, Yeah.
And then they can also do like Amazon's multi channel
fulfillment or they can do they just do something so they get
(24:16):
the Prime badge, have something in Amazon, but also have like,
yeah, they spread out the inventory.
Yeah, but the expectations are gonna be the.
Same I think my. Expectation and they all compete
on cost those 3 pills win on cost that's the only way they
beat Amazon as or Amazon doesn'tdo box stuffing.
So putting stuff in the box likeyou want to put fun pair of, you
want to make it your own box, you want to have like a more of
(24:37):
an experience for the consumer, Yeah, you gotta go to three.
How do you know all this? Let's work on my my.
My stealth Operation stealth. Operation Stealth because it
isn't anything one day. We'll find out what operations
does. Yeah.
So alright, so let's say you're a small three PL. and how are
you gonna go hire the engineers to build the robots to do all
this sort of stuff? Like all of a sudden your
company, you're running a company that's like a warehouse
(24:59):
with trucks. Showing what a great opportunity
for a startup. Yeah, I'm with you for sure.
I can see exactly. We're going.
Robotics company, world logistics robotics company.
We come into your warehouse, we digitize it.
We're gonna make you. Insert exists though, like I'm
sure like big companies like Honeywell on those types of
companies do tons of that sort of stuff.
But I'm what's interesting though is I find that Amazon, I
(25:20):
think it sounds like they're doing it internally themselves
where they're like, no, no, no, this is our like, this is our
competitive advantage. It's a core competency they have
to own that we're going to be. Great at this and we're gonna do
it internally. We're not outsourcing this to
Honeywell or another. Point they have their own skews,
so they have their own barcodes.Yeah, they have like for every
Amazon everything at Amazon Warehouse, it's got some little
(25:40):
fancy Amazon barcode as opposed to, you know some of the other
sort of like industry standard accepted ones out and every
other three PL. Yeah.
It's like they have a process, they have a system and that is
the maybe the most valuable partof their business.
Yeah. You know, it's always
interesting when you think aboutbusinesses and I think about our
business when we where we went deep on something where we spent
a lot of our time to make thingsefficient, OK.
(26:03):
And I feel like like for us it was like we needed to build apps
and we needed to do it very efficiently.
And and so we, we had an assembly line of apps that it's
like virtually automate it, OK. And we went way deeper than all
our competitors in that in that space because that was like a
core competency to we had. To be the best.
Seller, We had to be the best atit, OK?
(26:24):
And this is like Amazon doing the exact same thing.
They're saying, you know what? We're really about putting boxes
on trucks and getting them out of here.
And we need to be incredibly good at that.
And we're going to bring in the smartest people possible to
build the best robots possible, so that even our competitors who
are going to be outsourcing it to startups and stuff like that,
always playing catch up. Yeah.
(26:45):
We always have this advantage inour business as they have.
To be the innovators in the field.
Yeah, it's a toughie because then there's some real
concentration risk, like, wow, Amazon really owns that market.
I think just wrapping this up, Ithink the reality is if you have
a blue collar job, you're alwaysat risk of automation.
Automation is not your friend and for your job security, you
(27:08):
should be cognizant of that and be aware of where your company
is going with it. And maybe if you're working on
one of these warehouses and maybe you're seeing an
opportunity for your own business, you know, and you just
gotta go out and try and do something, maybe that's another
opportunity There two things that we don't understand because
we're just not in it you. Know what I mean?
That's what's our advice for startups like Build robots.
For the best, I think there'll be lots of opportunities in
(27:29):
warehouse automation. Yeah, I think the three PL.
market is super busy with tons of players looking for unique
advantages. Yeah, I think that's a
tremendous opportunity. I mean, we know some people who
do I want us to call like box consulting where they they
consult with three PL. and they're like, why did you use
that side as a box when you can use this one that's two inches
smaller? That would save you a cent per
(27:49):
box. And you know, like there's this
is a well, you know, built out industry.
But I do think there's a lot of opportunity because the Internet
that there's just so much shipping happening every day.
You know, I think it's a great opportunity for you to consider
how can we attack this market and do it in a way that helps,
you know, these three PL. compete with.
Them we need to build that like Star Trek, like transporter, you
(28:13):
know where you just like teleport box on the on the on
the pad and then you. I think the concept.
I always up at your door. Teleportation, as far as I
understand it, was always about effectively like destroying the
item and then like rebuilding it.
As a new place. Yeah.
So let's work on that. Get a leapfrog.
You know, attack. There it goes.
(28:35):
Ohhhhh no you would. Have been working.
Got teleport looking low tech drone and you're you're fucking
teleporting shit into peoples houses hell.
Yeah, alright, that's a great way.
Alright, the episode, yes. Alright, teleportation and
congratulations again of the Toronto Blue Jays.
See you next week, folks. Starting up?
(28:56):
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas.
Money folder, hustle. Smart dream.
So why turn that grind into a joy ride?
What? What are we supposed to do here?
Are we supposed to say no, Amazon, that's bad, You
shouldn't innovate. Yeah, they're gonna deliver a
ton of value to consumers. I think all of a sudden there's
that they could potentially be alot more cost competitive
because that's the way Amazon's gonna beat other players in this
market, right? And so they're going to want to
drive prices down so that they can be the option of choice.
(00:21):
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas.
Money folding, hustle. Smart dream.
So why turn that grind into a joy?
Ride. Important that the studio
audience knows that this is alsoour exhaustion episode as today
(00:43):
is Tuesday. We're filming here on Tuesday,
October 28th. Last night was the Blue Jays,
the Dodgers was it 18 inning 18 inning marathon game.
So like 2 baseball games and one.
I fell asleep at 2:00 in the morning.
Chris left my house at one in the.
Morning. But because we're shooting this
(01:05):
in advance, I just want to say congratulations to the Toronto
Blue Jays on winning the World Series.
That is fantastic. It's a bold prediction, you.
After last night, after the well, you know what, like we
played our beat team because basically our B team played a
whole game, played nine innings.Was was basically like was we
have all our position players almost were swapped out.
(01:27):
They played pretty well. Like they just didn't quite
score. They were, really.
Close their strategy. Give Shohei Ohtani the four
fingered salute. Yeah, every time.
Yeah. What if he like, it's the
Hackett Shack, but just, you know, the, the walk, the walk,
the Otani, you know what I mean?Just take the bat out of his
hands. Yeah, always.
Well, I mean, he's, he'll be pitching this evening, right?
(01:49):
Yeah. So that's gonna be just weird
too. Yeah.
But I really hope we messed him up.
I think that would be very satisfying after the last game.
But anyway, whatever. I mean, we will because we're
gonna win the World Series. Congratulations again, Toronto
Blues. Alright, Chris, what are we
doing here today? Alright.
We're talking about Amazon's robot revolution.
Ooh. Regular robots or sex robots?
(02:11):
I think they're actually not even calling them robots.
They're gonna call them cobots. OHS.
They're like they're with you while you're.
Working OHT yeah, right. For sure.
That that's what everybody. Well, two things.
That's what everybody wants first.
Secondly is you're totally gonnabe there for a long time if a
robot is doing exactly what you do.
Alright, So should we set the table?
Yes. OK.
(02:31):
So Amazon internal documents reveal plans automate
approximately 75% of operations.Fulfillment operations, right?
Yeah. So avoiding the need to hire
160,000 workers by 2027 which islike next two years and avoiding
more than 600,000 by 2033. What else is important about
(02:52):
2033? They aim to sell twice as much
without adding any people. Thanks.
OK. Yeah.
So like that's that was the thing to me where I was like,
yeah, OK. So, yeah, so like they've
obviously gotten some blowback on this because I think the this
information like leaked that this wasn't like supposed to get
(03:13):
out. I'm sure Trump must absolutely
love this, right? But anyway, so apparently Amazon
is they're trying to get their staff to avoid terms like
automation and AI in favour of like advanced technology.
I mean this is. Just like yeah, you.
Cobots. And yeah, this is just crap.
Yeah, Yeah. That's like marketing spin on
like, hey, we're gonna fire a lot of you and ideally we don't
(03:35):
have any of you. Yeah, but here's what we're
trying to do. Apparently they have one of
their newer facilities, Shreveport, LA, it actually cars
because of robots that requires 25% fewer, hmm, regular workers
and that that same warehouse, they planned to cut it to 50% of
the workers that they started with.
So that's pretty interesting. And unfortunately there's also
(04:00):
this issue that most of the Amazon employees that are
probably going to be subject to having their jobs lost are also
black or interesting, you know, so not a great situation for for
that for them. So obviously some scary stuff,
yeah. What's your couple things?
I also read that that that Louisiana facility and what does
(04:23):
it Shreveport or whatever, you just report Shreveport
apparently. I believe they had a CFL team
for a brief. What?
Yeah. Really.
Yeah. What were they?
Called. I can't remember, I'll have to
listen. Out for Shreve Shreve,
Shreveport Shivers. Apparently there are gonna be 40
more sites that are gonna copy that model by 2027.
(04:43):
Yeah, they're gonna do that. Everywhere I mean this makes
sense. So this is OK.
So I think I have a couple of different thoughts, like similar
but different. My hot take off the top is good.
OK, so like, obviously like if you, if you ever actually seen a
video of what it looks like in an Amazon where it's highly
automated anyway, they have thislike Roomba thing.
Yeah, the hockey puck. The hockey puck goes around and
it carries like huge stacks and it like move stuff around and
(05:04):
whatever. Yeah, like takes it to the
workers that are packing this stuff rather than the workers
having to go to the shelf to getthe item.
Like this is a the, the, this isa company that's already focused
on innovation. And, and also they were saying
something that like the, the functional element of this
automation is that you can, they're going to save something
like $0.30 a package, which is enormous.
(05:26):
Yeah, right. That's a huge amount of savings
by doing this. And not to mention all the
headaches and all the other things that they don't have to
deal with, frankly, by having a lot of staff like coming down
on. That makes sense.
Yeah. So I think fundamentally what
we're seeing is the transformation of Amazon from
like a net like job creator to what's the opposite of job, like
destroyer. Almost I I think they're just
(05:48):
talking about like stopping hiring.
Like I think actually they were in the warehouse like attrition
and they just weren't gonna rehire as.
They yeah, that's right. Yeah.
They're not like, they're not like going on a big firing spree
here. They.
Weren't sending out pink slips, I don't think.
I think what it was was just natural, you know, contraction
of their workforce, not rehiringand implementing more robots to
to do. It so like finishing my thought
(06:09):
though, like what it looks like in the warehouse.
So, so they got, they got all these robots doing things
already and then they they the person basically what happens is
the person stands at a desk and a label comes up.
They grab the label, they look at it, they grab the right size
box, the item is there. They put the item in, they put
the they can do the tape on it really quickly, and then they
(06:30):
put on a variable. Anyway, that's the human
intervention at this time. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's something about the
sorting of these like different size boxes.
Like that's, that's at least oneof the at least one of the forms
of human automation in these warehouses and probably in the
more legacy ones. So to me, like this is not
surprising. This is the way of the future.
We've already talked about even on this show, a lot about how,
you know, AI is coming, but alsoin the form of AI robotics.
(06:52):
So like, which is sort of beyondjust the automation we're
talking about here. Yeah.
Being kind of see that there's going to be a lot of different
forms of downward pressure on both blue collar and white
collar jobs. And this is one of the examples
that you think also of like Tesla and like all the stuff we
talked about in terms of their robots and what they want to do
and the optimist thing. And it's sort of like, yeah,
this is a different but like similar feeling, sort of
(07:15):
progression was actually talkingto her dad, Papa Sinkinson never
called him Papa, but he and he was like, you know, I remember
in like the 80s or whatever, when in Japan there all the car
automation was starting to like be created by robots as well.
And there was a similar feeling,oh, wow, it's going to destroy
all these jobs. And like, yeah, it does.
And these are all functions of like, cost competitiveness.
(07:36):
Amazon is also in a more competitive market in the United
States now. Like there's a lot of different
forces, you know, whether it's team or whatever, though team is
like probably dealing a little bit with like the whole, what's
it called, the minimum. Exception the minus.
The minimum, yeah, dealing. With, I don't think that exists
anymore. It does get rid of.
It I think so that's why I understand and so that kind of
sucks for them, right, because the whole shop like a
(07:57):
billionaire thing and then and then there's also tick tock
shop. There's other things putting
downward pressure on them for ifI'm Amazon, this is like, this
is part of staying competitive. Alright, so we're startup
different. I'm gonna take a different view
than you on this. So you're you're saying this is
gonna have like unemployment is gonna go way up, this is gonna
be a major disruptor and stuff like that.
(08:17):
So what I want to say is the most paradoxical thing ever, OK?
Technology isn't new, huh? Do you hear what I say?
Technology isn't new, which is totally paradoxical because
technology is always new, right?It's new tech.
Like something new came out. That's technology.
OK, right. But I'm gonna say the concept of
technology is not new. We have had technology changing
(08:41):
our lives forever. OK, Uh, So what I wanna put out
there is I, I, I, I did some research and I said, hey, what
has the traditional like historical unemployment rate
been? And I went back 100 years.
OK, wow. So from some.
Of the data, that's no, no, no, I did some.
Research. Yeah.
So I went from, I was looking for like, I couldn't get data.
(09:03):
I found data From 1948 to 2020, the historical average
unemployment rate in the United States was 5.8%.
On average from on average. OK.
Just sort of average a day, OK, OK.
As of August 2025, the unemployment rate stands at 4.3.
Yeah, it's pretty good. I I did know that actually in
the. United States.
Yeah. So what?
What's crazy, though, is that we've had technological
(09:26):
advancement. You were talking about Dad being
in the warehouse and in Japan making photocopiers back in the
80s and everything. I don't.
Nobody's going to have a job anymore.
Yeah. And then and then, like the
Internet revolution happens and nobody's gonna have a job
anymore. Yeah, OK.
And now we're already a few years into the AI thing, and
people seem to be. Still employed, if anything,
(09:48):
like one of the biggest net employers is the AI companies
themselves. Yeah, just like weird.
Yeah, but weirdly, that doesn't fill me with confidence.
But anyway. But yeah, OK.
But I, I think one of the, the myths, OHS, we love myths here
is that, you know, technology, like it definitely displaces
people. People lose their jobs, but they
(10:09):
find other jobs and they do other things that are more
interesting. What I thought was really
interesting was apparently in 1910, 31% of workers were in
farm occupations. In nine in 1910, OK, it went
down to about 27% by 1920 and today it's less than 1%.
(10:30):
Yeah, it's all the mega farms, Right, right, right.
Because of automation and that sort of stuff.
But again, unemployment rate 4.3.
OK. OK, OK, So what I'm trying to
say is jobs are lost, but other jobs are created.
OK, people move from farming twoworking on AI companies.
I'm sure it's a straight line path to do that.
(10:53):
But you know what? Pitchfork.
You know. You've been shoveling crap in
the stable, kid Anthropic. Because they're shoveling crap
and you have no idea how much. Waste these AI data centres
produce they need today. Unfortunately, it's nuclear
waste, but. I sold my business for $40
(11:17):
million and I want you to steal my ideas.
Check out my book Startup Different on Amazon, Audible and
Kindle. OK, OK, OK, so alright, so
that's that's my take. OK, blow me up.
Go after. That no, it's pretty good.
So I will say on the, the, so there's nuance to it.
(11:39):
It's so like not cut and dry andI think you kind of alluded to
it. The first thing I'll say,
though, I do partially agree, which I agree with the concept
that if you look back on history, you what you're saying
is 100% accurate. There's circumstances there was
I can't remember the guys name, but there was like a a
contemporary in the 1901 look, I'm gonna get this wrong, but 19
tens, 1920s, nineteen 30s who was like, we're gonna run out of
(12:02):
food. Yeah, we're not gonna have
enough food for for the number of people on earth.
Did the math, just did the math on the on the population growth
and did the math on the efficiency of like per yield of
harvest, whatever. And So what happened?
We did we had a bunch of innovation.
We created, you know, new combines.
We had new kinds of green, we had new kinds of pesticides
where harvests and we like quadrupled our output and hey,
(12:24):
guess what? Plants to everybody's fine.
They have enough food on the planet right now to feed
everyone. It's just not well distributed,
right. That's why there are some people
who unfortunately face like famine.
But on the other hand, there's like societies that have a ton
of food, like those in Western societies.
So. So what am I getting at here is
like there's always like this fear that, yeah, like something
this like potential very negative outcome, but you know,
(12:47):
it, it tends to be sort of mitigated like nothing.
Another another way to think about this is nothing is as bad
or as good as people portray it.Generally it's in the middle, as
is one of my feeling on this. So if we come to this
circumstance, so you're trying to make the argument that the
these jobs that will be lost, these people will find other
jobs and those other jobs could potentially be better.
(13:08):
And I would be interested more in trying to understand the
quality of life of those people because the job is not a job is
not a job. So if if I go and I'm like,
maybe you have this data, I think you're a little pumped.
Yeah, Hang on. I got.
It you're on my counter argumentbullet 2 right now, so.
What you. Let me know when I can jump
back. In this is horseshit, you
(13:30):
actually got the counter arguments.
Yeah, wow. I I.
Cut the show. This is crap anyway, so no
pressure, but I'm really excitednow to see if I could do your AI
bet your research, quote UN quote.
So I OK, so so these people might have been making X amount
work market out of warehouse probably like 1920 bucks an hour
(13:53):
or something like that. I I think it's roughly what it
is. It's probably on average.
And so they're making that, but then they have to get a new job
or they have to retrain, which has a few years of cost to it
plus then going to a new job, making the same or less.
You know, once you factor all this in, it's obvious it's
probably net negative. But I don't necessarily know
(14:13):
that. And I think there is also a lot
of, you know, we take certain things for granted, like the the
cost to move from one city to the next, the cost to go to
retraining, the cost to do thesesorts of things as material.
And it's not always feasible like some people for because of
financial reasons, they can't just move out of their town,
right, right. So, so it's a little bit more
complicated, but go ahead and continue with your AI driven.
(14:35):
Argument really well, you got numbers 2 and 3.
Bullet points. Cool, so job quality concerns.
So yeah, you have a fancy job, white collar doing awesome
stuff, and you can't quickly. Replace.
Real deal with something. Simple why people freak out with
AI because they don't see the next job and they what they they
probably get pretty good money right now.
Yeah, exactly. So that is scary making 150 a
(14:58):
year. We could benefits.
We are in that white colour category as well, so I'm feeling
the heat as well. Especially as a software
developer, you know that's pretty.
Cushy job. I feel bad I'm I'm less into
vibe coding right now but we cantalk about that right around.
OK, cool. OK.
The other thing you talked aboutwas transition costs.
So yeah, it's definitely not like you can easily move from
(15:21):
your existing job, your existingwhite collar job to something
else. So that's the the transition
piece, the retraining piece thatcan cause it's going to cost.
Me the cost you cost people timeand it and often it also costs
taxpayers money. Just for what it's worth, but
and then so the last counter argument I have to my thesis.
So. So you're offering the counter
argument. Yeah, no, I'm gonna blow up my
(15:43):
my own argument. Interesting.
So the the whole idea that this time is different, OK.
And I think when you think aboutwhy the AI technology and what
it's doing to our economy, why this time is different, is the
speed at which it's happening and the people that it's
affecting. OK.
So in the past it was low end jobs, jobs that people didn't
(16:06):
really wanna do. Now it's the like, it's the
intelligent people that are being displaced by the AI.
Theoretically, right? I don't think we've seen a ton
of displacement yet, but it's onthe horizon if it's.
Gonna happen. And then of course, this wasn't
a thing three years ago, like 2022 was kind of when they
started to get some traction. And so like in three years this
(16:28):
is really revolutionized the waythat businesses are operating.
We're see it happening all over the place.
So that's the scary piece is that, you know, all that stuff
farming automation, you know, robots that happen in the 80s,
that sort of stuff. But this feels different.
You know, is, is the fundamentalcrux of my main counter argument
that maybe I know what we are building our business.
(16:50):
What worked for us when we were three employees, 4 employees did
not work for us when we were like 8-9 employees.
Just hilarious. Kind of had to reinvent
ourselves. Not that big.
Company, but it's like such a change so quickly.
Right. But so sometimes what has
happened in the past isn't a good indicator of what's gonna
happen in the future. So in this case, I, I kind of
think we might be in that category where it's happening so
(17:12):
fast and it is so fundamental that people that it's affecting
that, that this may not be the one that happens the way the
other. Let's come back to let's come
back to the though. I like that and I think that's
probably true. And I think as a broader topic
on AI like which I'm sure we'll,we'll probably talk about this
in another episode, but I think that's like as AI affecting
employment, that's really good, nice.
(17:34):
And like the speed and the singularity ads like this other
like objective fear of the unknown.
But when we come back to the warehouse for a second.
So let's consider for for a moment, are these jobs worth
protecting? Yeah, right.
So this is the thing I, I, I struggle with, right?
Because by all accounts, these are kind of shitty jobs.
(17:56):
Yeah, right. And, you know, you mind you like
you gotta make money and go whatever.
And I'm not trying to deny people opportunity.
And sometimes you gotta take thejob that's available.
And I understand that. But, you know, is there
something else we can do with these people that uses, you
know, probably what is their unique intelligence and
experience and education and allthat stuff to, to do something
(18:20):
maybe more meaningful? Yeah.
Like, like it feels kind of likethese should be automated jobs.
Yeah. And I'm not, again, I'm not
trying to get people fired or something.
And there's probably a human element where there is value
added by the employees, of course.
But I, I just kind of feel like it's pretty limited, you know?
It kind of reminds me a few episodes back we talked about
(18:41):
the Canada Post Labour. Just doesn't remind me of this.
And, you know, like everybody always says, well, I is great at
doing the things that people don't wanna do.
And automation, you know, like people don't wanna do these
jobs. And you see like labour
disruptions and they're saying these jobs are, you know, tough
and we've hard work and they don't like the jobs and, and
they want more money to do thosesame jobs, but they're not
(19:02):
really complicated. And and you kind of have those
moments where you're like, maybethis isn't a job that people
want to do. Yeah.
And this is a good candidate forautomation AI.
The only way we can get people to do these jobs is by paying
them a lot, right, Right. Which is interesting because in
(19:22):
the in the white collar world, you get paid a lot for the most
intellectually complex or like leadership level demanding work,
right. And strategic as opposed to like
work that you hate. Right.
You know what I mean? Like, this is kind of this weird
thing on the low end of the job market where it's like all the
jobs are terrible. Yeah.
And you wanna be a garbage man. Like, I don't think anybody
(19:42):
grows up being like, well, maybelike some little kids cause cute
as hell, but see, like, but you know, I don't think many of them
grow up being like, I want to bea garbage man.
But then you look at garbage people like it paid like, you
know, pretty well, like 100 hundred K, 120 maybe, yeah,
'cause I gotta pick up the garbage, yeah.
So like. There's another example of
automation where now like the trucks just have the arm that
grabs the thing and chucks it inthe back and off it goes to.
(20:05):
Self driving, self driving vehicles that you can see that
what happened, it was like a startup called Auto.
I think they got sued by somebody, but it was the whole
concept was a truck that drives themselves like like a big 18
Wheelers. Oh yeah.
But I think they were like with the Tesla getting in an
accident. But you can see the longer term
path that probably being realistic.
Automation is for sure, for sure.
(20:25):
But anyway, so the, I guess coming back to this is like,
yeah, it sucks with these people.
But I also think that if you're the job that you're working and
if you can kind of see that thiscould obviously be perhaps
automated or large portions of it automated and you understand
that you have worked for a big company that's always like their
business model is essentially focused on cost reduction, then
(20:45):
it's kind of like, well, this ismaybe not a great gig.
Yeah. And if you're in these spaces,
then you should be maybe maybe while you're still employed,
you're thinking about retrainingat night.
Yeah. You know, you're doing night
school and stuff. I don't know.
I know this is a big ask, but like, I guess, I guess the point
is, like, what? What are we supposed to do here?
Are we supposed to say, no, Amazon, that's bad.
(21:06):
You shouldn't innovate. Yeah, they're going to deliver a
ton of value to consumers. I think all of a sudden, there's
that they could potentially be alot more cost competitive
because that's the way Amazon's gonna beat other players in this
market. Right.
And so they're going to want to drive places down, yeah, so that
they can be the option of choiceand so or speed up delivery.
Alright, so let me throw anotherangle on this at you in the
(21:27):
last, you know, few minutes of this.
Episode rolling angle throw that.
Angle. Just just do it.
Turn a phrase. Here's the here's the angle.
Alright, what do you do if you're Walmart?
The same thing. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.
It's like, I read about this toofor this, for this episode, and
it was as soon as one of them figures this out, they're all
(21:48):
going to do it. Yeah, right.
Yeah. So I think like Walmart is
probably pretty automated, probably not dissimilar to what
Amazon is doing. Yeah.
And I think they're like, well, let's just keep doing that
because they also, they especially Walmart needs to be
cost competitive, right. So that doesn't surprise me like
at all. So I think, yeah, that's so
like, look, if you're a warehouse worker, like you might
(22:10):
not have a job in five to 10 years, right?
Or like it's the writings on thewall.
They're looking to get rid of you.
Yeah, you know. And it's a toughie like they
might not be looking to get rid of you, but if you quit they are
probably not replacing. It tell you what, maybe you're
your opportunity lies in being like a mechanical engineer.
Yeah, actually that is one of those things that the spin that
(22:30):
that Amazon is trying to put on it is like, hey, we're going to
need all these high-end like engineers to go, but like.
It's a fraction, a tiny fractionof the number of like employees
they need. At a warehouse, yeah.
Yeah, should be paid more, yes, you know, but.
The thing too is for a lot of tax stuff.
I don't know about you, but likeit.
Once you got it figured out you you can you can replicate that
attack. Pretty easily, yeah.
(22:51):
You just have a stable of backuphockey pucks that go out and
it's like 01 brochure. They did this already, but it
goes, yeah. I can't imagine you imagine
being like OHT, like there's a asingle point of failure and an
Amazon house. Like there's no way.
There's no way there's redundancies built into that
whole thing. Yeah, exactly.
They can't not deliver your thing in the day.
So alright, another angle. What do you do if you're a small
(23:13):
startup, like when you're tryingto compete with, you know, like
let's say you're a small companyand you've got your own like
warehouse and all of a sudden you're competing with Amazon
that has robots packing and picking and packing every
single. Product, yeah, you gotta do it
too like, but I think like, OK, there's a few categories here.
So there's Amazon, the the flagship of warehouse
(23:35):
management, like incredible logistics.
After that you have the three PL. market, right, which is all.
There's a bajillion 3 PL. guys. They're doing this for sure.
They're gonna have to go down this path.
Yeah, there's no way they couldn't for the same reasons
that they wanna offer as the waythey beat Amazon is they're less
expensive to hold the merchandise and they're less
(23:56):
expensive on the fulfillment. But they don't have the
marketplace, right? Amazon is the front facing
marketplace as well. If you want to be Prime, you
have to be in the Amazon warehouse.
Yeah, but often what people do is they put a little bit of
inventory in Amazon and then a lot of inventory in a three PL.
as well. So they get Prime, Yeah.
And then they can also do like Amazon's multi channel
fulfillment or they can do they just do something so they get
(24:16):
the Prime badge, have something in Amazon, but also have like,
yeah, they spread out the inventory.
Yeah, but the expectations are gonna be the.
Same I think my. Expectation and they all compete
on cost those 3 pills win on cost that's the only way they
beat Amazon as or Amazon doesn'tdo box stuffing.
So putting stuff in the box likeyou want to put fun pair of, you
want to make it your own box, you want to have like a more of
(24:37):
an experience for the consumer, Yeah, you gotta go to three.
How do you know all this? Let's work on my my.
My stealth Operation stealth. Operation Stealth because it
isn't anything one day. We'll find out what operations
does. Yeah.
So alright, so let's say you're a small three PL. and how are
you gonna go hire the engineers to build the robots to do all
this sort of stuff? Like all of a sudden your
company, you're running a company that's like a warehouse
(24:59):
with trucks. Showing what a great opportunity
for a startup. Yeah, I'm with you for sure.
I can see exactly. We're going.
Robotics company, world logistics robotics company.
We come into your warehouse, we digitize it.
We're gonna make you. Insert exists though, like I'm
sure like big companies like Honeywell on those types of
companies do tons of that sort of stuff.
But I'm what's interesting though is I find that Amazon, I
(25:20):
think it sounds like they're doing it internally themselves
where they're like, no, no, no, this is our like, this is our
competitive advantage. It's a core competency they have
to own that we're going to be. Great at this and we're gonna do
it internally. We're not outsourcing this to
Honeywell or another. Point they have their own skews,
so they have their own barcodes.Yeah, they have like for every
Amazon everything at Amazon Warehouse, it's got some little
(25:40):
fancy Amazon barcode as opposed to, you know some of the other
sort of like industry standard accepted ones out and every
other three PL. Yeah.
It's like they have a process, they have a system and that is
the maybe the most valuable partof their business.
Yeah. You know, it's always
interesting when you think aboutbusinesses and I think about our
business when we where we went deep on something where we spent
a lot of our time to make thingsefficient, OK.
(26:03):
And I feel like like for us it was like we needed to build apps
and we needed to do it very efficiently.
And and so we, we had an assembly line of apps that it's
like virtually automate it, OK. And we went way deeper than all
our competitors in that in that space because that was like a
core competency to we had. To be the best.
Seller, We had to be the best atit, OK?
(26:24):
And this is like Amazon doing the exact same thing.
They're saying, you know what? We're really about putting boxes
on trucks and getting them out of here.
And we need to be incredibly good at that.
And we're going to bring in the smartest people possible to
build the best robots possible, so that even our competitors who
are going to be outsourcing it to startups and stuff like that,
always playing catch up. Yeah.
(26:45):
We always have this advantage inour business as they have.
To be the innovators in the field.
Yeah, it's a toughie because then there's some real
concentration risk, like, wow, Amazon really owns that market.
I think just wrapping this up, Ithink the reality is if you have
a blue collar job, you're alwaysat risk of automation.
Automation is not your friend and for your job security, you
(27:08):
should be cognizant of that and be aware of where your company
is going with it. And maybe if you're working on
one of these warehouses and maybe you're seeing an
opportunity for your own business, you know, and you just
gotta go out and try and do something, maybe that's another
opportunity There two things that we don't understand because
we're just not in it you. Know what I mean?
That's what's our advice for startups like Build robots.
For the best, I think there'll be lots of opportunities in
(27:29):
warehouse automation. Yeah, I think the three PL.
market is super busy with tons of players looking for unique
advantages. Yeah, I think that's a
tremendous opportunity. I mean, we know some people who
do I want us to call like box consulting where they they
consult with three PL. and they're like, why did you use
that side as a box when you can use this one that's two inches
smaller? That would save you a cent per
(27:49):
box. And you know, like there's this
is a well, you know, built out industry.
But I do think there's a lot of opportunity because the Internet
that there's just so much shipping happening every day.
You know, I think it's a great opportunity for you to consider
how can we attack this market and do it in a way that helps,
you know, these three PL. compete with.
Them we need to build that like Star Trek, like transporter, you
(28:13):
know where you just like teleport box on the on the on
the pad and then you. I think the concept.
I always up at your door. Teleportation, as far as I
understand it, was always about effectively like destroying the
item and then like rebuilding it.
As a new place. Yeah.
So let's work on that. Get a leapfrog.
You know, attack. There it goes.
(28:35):
Ohhhhh no you would. Have been working.
Got teleport looking low tech drone and you're you're fucking
teleporting shit into peoples houses hell.
Yeah, alright, that's a great way.
Alright, the episode, yes. Alright, teleportation and
congratulations again of the Toronto Blue Jays.
See you next week, folks. Starting up?
(28:56):
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas.
Money folder, hustle. Smart dream.
So why turn that grind into a joy ride?
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