WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 If you are listening to this right now, I need 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:05.219 you to just just stop what you're doing. Yeah. 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:07.839 Seriously, pull over the car, put down your coffee 00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:09.919 and just look at the date on your phone or get 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:14.900 down. It is Tuesday, February 24, 2026. And if 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:17.179 you've opened a brokerage app or glanced at a 00:00:17.179 --> 00:00:20.859 news ticker or frankly, even just felt that that 00:00:20.859 --> 00:00:23.379 sheer panic radiating off social media in the 00:00:23.379 --> 00:00:26.079 last 24 hours, you know that the world looks 00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:27.800 fundamentally different today than it did on 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:30.829 Monday morning. It really does. It's. It's unrecognizable 00:00:30.829 --> 00:00:33.810 in some ways. Right. And, you know, on this show, 00:00:33.829 --> 00:00:35.909 we usually sit here and talk about paradigm shifts 00:00:35.909 --> 00:00:38.590 in the abstract. We look at charts projecting 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:41.429 10 years out. We discuss the quote unquote future 00:00:41.429 --> 00:00:44.070 of work like it's some sci -fi novel. Yeah. But 00:00:44.070 --> 00:00:46.909 today, today is not a projection. No, today is 00:00:46.909 --> 00:00:50.070 history. Yeah. The screens are flashing red and 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:52.710 I mean deep red. And it is not just a standard 00:00:52.710 --> 00:00:55.609 market correction. It is a repricing of reality. 00:00:55.950 --> 00:00:58.750 Red is putting it mildly. It's an absolute bloodbath 00:00:58.750 --> 00:01:02.079 out there. But unlike a typical crash, this feels, 00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:04.000 I don't know, it feels specific. It's highly 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.719 targeted. Targeted. Exactly. It feels different 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:11.099 than 2008. It feels completely different than 00:01:11.099 --> 00:01:13.299 the dot -com bubble. That's because it is. What 00:01:13.299 --> 00:01:15.640 we're seeing, what you are feeling in your gut 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:18.680 right now, is the arrival of the interregnum. 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:21.599 The interregnum. Yes. We are staring directly 00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:24.840 into the face of what Brian Rommel at Read Multiplex 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:28.099 has been warning us about and preparing us for 00:01:28.099 --> 00:01:30.900 for years now. He calls it the AI depression. 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:33.620 OK, we need to unpack this immediately because 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:36.560 there is just a palpable amount of fear out there. 00:01:36.620 --> 00:01:38.519 Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've had friends texting 00:01:38.519 --> 00:01:41.379 me all morning asking if their 401ks are going 00:01:41.379 --> 00:01:44.519 to zero. So our job today, as always on The Deep 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:46.659 Dive, is to cut through that noise and find the 00:01:46.659 --> 00:01:49.019 actual signal. Right. This isn't just our standard 00:01:49.019 --> 00:01:52.040 Tuesday discussion. This is a breaking news deep 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:55.120 dive into a pivotal, massive moment in the 5 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:57.819 ,000 days timeline. It's the moment the theoretical 00:01:57.819 --> 00:02:00.689 became literal. And to understand where we're 00:02:00.689 --> 00:02:03.129 going and why, surprisingly, this might actually 00:02:03.129 --> 00:02:05.290 be good news in the long run, we have to understand 00:02:05.290 --> 00:02:07.129 exactly what broke yesterday. Because something 00:02:07.129 --> 00:02:09.090 definitely broke. Chattered is more like it. 00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:13.949 Let's start with the event. The catalyst. Yesterday, 00:02:14.150 --> 00:02:21.490 Monday, February 23, 2026. IBM. Big blue. The 00:02:21.490 --> 00:02:23.710 stalwart. Right. The absolute stalwart of the 00:02:23.710 --> 00:02:26.409 tech industry for a century. They crashed. And 00:02:26.409 --> 00:02:28.740 it didn't just dip a little. it plummeted roughly 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:32.000 13 % in a single trading session. Which, and 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.659 we need to stress this, For a company of that 00:02:34.659 --> 00:02:37.259 massive size, that level of stability and that 00:02:37.259 --> 00:02:39.900 amount of institutional ownership is catastrophic. 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.439 It's unheard of. That is the worst single day 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:46.180 drop IBM has seen in over 25 years. We are talking 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:48.840 about billions and billions of dollars of market 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:51.479 capitalization just evaporating in hours. And 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:53.939 IBM is usually the safe harbor. Exactly. It's 00:02:53.939 --> 00:02:55.939 the classic widows and orphans stock. It's the 00:02:55.939 --> 00:02:57.680 stock you buy when you want to avoid this exact 00:02:57.680 --> 00:02:59.979 kind of volatility. The bedrock. And usually, 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:01.659 right, when you see a drop of that magnitude 00:03:01.659 --> 00:03:03.860 in a blue chip stock. You expect a scandal. You 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:06.199 expect an earnings miss. Or a CEO getting caught 00:03:06.199 --> 00:03:08.580 embezzling. Right. Or some massive accounting 00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:11.280 fraud being uncovered by the SEC. Right. But 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.340 I looked at the wires. I was scouring them last 00:03:13.340 --> 00:03:15.379 night. There was none of that. No, the earnings 00:03:15.379 --> 00:03:17.599 were perfectly fine. The management is stable. 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:20.639 This wasn't a failure of their operations. It 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:23.460 was a failure of the future. Wow. The catalyst 00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:28.060 was a single blog post. One blog. One blog post 00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:31.800 from Anthropic. They announced Claude Code. And 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:32.960 this is where it gets really interesting and 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.000 frankly a little terrifying for the old guard. 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:38.319 We need to explain why a software announcement 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:42.800 from an AI competitor would knife point a giant 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:48.180 like IBM so effectively. Like, what exactly is 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:50.419 Claude Code and why did Wall Street completely 00:03:50.419 --> 00:03:53.460 freak out over it? Well, to understand the panic, 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:55.569 you have to understand the moat. You have to 00:03:55.569 --> 00:03:58.229 look at what IBM actually sells to make its money. 00:03:58.610 --> 00:04:00.969 Cloud code is a new capability from Anthropic 00:04:00.969 --> 00:04:03.530 that specifically targets COBOL modernization. 00:04:03.810 --> 00:04:06.289 COBOL. Right. Now, for the non -technical folks 00:04:06.289 --> 00:04:08.629 listening, COBOL, which stands for Common Business 00:04:08.629 --> 00:04:10.990 Oriented Language, is a programming language 00:04:10.990 --> 00:04:14.469 that dates back to the late 1950s. It is ancient 00:04:14.469 --> 00:04:16.230 and is practically extinct in the wild. I mean, 00:04:16.230 --> 00:04:18.589 my grandfather might have coded in COBOL. It 00:04:18.589 --> 00:04:21.709 is ancient, yes, but, and this is the critical 00:04:21.709 --> 00:04:24.980 key that people always forget. It runs the entire 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:28.060 world. We are talking about the invisible plumbing 00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:30.339 of the global economy. Right. We're talking about 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:32.740 the mainframe systems at major banks. Airline 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:35.459 reservation system. Government databases. The 00:04:35.459 --> 00:04:38.279 Social Security Administration. Exactly. When 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:40.220 you swipe your credit card at the grocery store 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:42.819 to buy milk, that transaction is highly likely 00:04:42.819 --> 00:04:45.199 hitting a mainframe running COBOL somewhere. 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:49.540 Wow. When you book a flight. And for decades, 00:04:49.699 --> 00:04:53.680 IBM, along with this massive ecosystem of consultants, 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:56.600 companies like Accenture, Deloitte, Capgemini, 00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.439 they have made an absolute fortune maintaining 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:02.730 this incredibly old code. Why? because it is 00:05:02.730 --> 00:05:05.610 notoriously difficult to change it's what developers 00:05:05.610 --> 00:05:08.589 call spaghetti code just a tangled mess a total 00:05:08.589 --> 00:05:10.850 mess it's poorly documented it's been patched 00:05:10.850 --> 00:05:13.129 a thousand times over 50 years and the original 00:05:13.129 --> 00:05:16.129 people who wrote it are mostly retired or frankly 00:05:16.129 --> 00:05:18.629 deceased so the actual difficulty of the system 00:05:18.629 --> 00:05:21.430 was their business model precisely it's a scarcity 00:05:21.430 --> 00:05:24.009 of expertise business model it acts as this massive 00:05:24.009 --> 00:05:27.569 defensive wall a huge moat if you are a mega 00:05:27.569 --> 00:05:30.449 bank like jp morgan or city and you finally want 00:05:30.449 --> 00:05:33.100 to update your latest system to the cloud, you 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:35.259 can't just highlight it and click copy paste. 00:05:35.420 --> 00:05:38.519 You have to hire expensive experts to act as 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:40.779 digital archaeologists. They have to sit there 00:05:40.779 --> 00:05:42.860 and figure out what the code even does before 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:44.920 they can rewrite it. It's the legacy lock -in. 00:05:45.019 --> 00:05:49.459 IBM basically collects a massive tax on the sheer 00:05:49.459 --> 00:05:52.579 difficulty of moving away from IBM. Yes, until 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:55.480 yesterday. Yesterday, the lock was picked. By 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:58.279 Claude Code. By Claude Code. Amthropic demonstrated 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:00.600 that this new AI, which acts as an autonomous 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:03.300 agent, mind you, not just a standard chatbot, 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:06.800 can automate the exploration, the analysis, the 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:09.019 dependency mapping, and the actual migration 00:06:09.019 --> 00:06:11.879 of these massive coveal code bases. Okay, let's 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:13.459 get a little technical here for a second, because 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:15.980 I want you, the listener, to really grasp the 00:06:15.980 --> 00:06:17.939 magnitude of this shift. When you say automate, 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:19.740 are we talking about just writing a few lines 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:22.839 of code, like a fancy autocomplete? No, not at 00:06:22.839 --> 00:06:25.490 all. We are talking about full step. logic mapping. 00:06:25.730 --> 00:06:28.509 Cloud code can ingest the entire repository. 00:06:28.910 --> 00:06:32.189 It can map out where variable X affects outcome 00:06:32.189 --> 00:06:35.250 Y across millions of lines of archaic code. Unbelievable. 00:06:35.529 --> 00:06:37.569 It understands the underlying business logic 00:06:37.569 --> 00:06:40.490 hidden inside that spaghetti mess, and then it 00:06:40.490 --> 00:06:43.389 literally rewrites that exact logic into modern 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:46.350 languages like Python or Go. So what used to 00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:50.250 take, say, a specialized team of 20 consultants 00:06:50.250 --> 00:06:53.350 five solid years to map out. Can now be done 00:06:53.350 --> 00:06:56.100 in quarters. Or for just the initial analysis 00:06:56.100 --> 00:06:59.600 phase, days. The days. The inference cost, meaning 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.959 the cost of the electricity and the compute power 00:07:01.959 --> 00:07:04.660 to run the AI, is fractions of a penny compared 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:07.139 to the human cost of a consultant charging $300 00:07:07.139 --> 00:07:09.620 an hour. And that is why the stock crashed. Wall 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:11.680 Street did the math. The market looked at IBM 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.439 and realized, wait a minute, that reliable revenue 00:07:14.439 --> 00:07:17.459 stream, that massive mode of complex legacy code, 00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:19.500 it just evaporated overnight. The barrier to 00:07:19.500 --> 00:07:21.639 entry for fixing these old systems dropped to 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:23.930 essentially zero. It's gone. The realization 00:07:23.930 --> 00:07:26.250 hit that the legacy lock -in is officially gone. 00:07:26.410 --> 00:07:29.490 And that is why we are calling this the AI depression. 00:07:29.850 --> 00:07:32.550 Yes. I want to be clear here. It is not that 00:07:32.550 --> 00:07:34.769 money is literally disappearing from the world. 00:07:35.350 --> 00:07:38.569 It is that the value of the old ways of doing 00:07:38.569 --> 00:07:42.129 things, specifically the value of friction and 00:07:42.129 --> 00:07:45.610 inefficiency, is being repriced to zero. Repriced 00:07:45.610 --> 00:07:48.230 to zero. And we are going to dive deep into that 00:07:48.230 --> 00:07:50.829 core concept, the AI depression, because Brian 00:07:50.829 --> 00:07:53.430 Ormel's analysis on this over at Reed Multiplex 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:56.230 is absolutely vital for keeping your head straight 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:58.250 while the market panics all around us. Right. 00:07:58.310 --> 00:08:00.490 He frames this whole experience as the valley 00:08:00.490 --> 00:08:03.220 of the monomyth, the hero's journey. It's the 00:08:03.220 --> 00:08:05.639 dark valley we have to cross to get to the age 00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:07.860 of abundance. That's the core mission of this 00:08:07.860 --> 00:08:10.600 deep dive today. We are going to explain why 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:12.720 this crash is happening, why it is actually a 00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:15.259 sign of massive progress, even though it hurts 00:08:15.259 --> 00:08:17.079 like hell for a lot of portfolios right now. 00:08:17.180 --> 00:08:19.959 And we are going to look at 10 specific business 00:08:19.959 --> 00:08:22.579 models that Brian suggests will absolutely thrive 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:24.819 in this new landscape. So if you're looking at 00:08:24.819 --> 00:08:26.699 your portfolio this morning and freaking out, 00:08:26.740 --> 00:08:28.779 or maybe you're looking at your corporate career 00:08:28.779 --> 00:08:30.560 and wondering if you're next on the chopping 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:34.110 block. Stay with us because we are going to map 00:08:34.110 --> 00:08:36.710 out the road ahead. We have the map, but let's 00:08:36.710 --> 00:08:38.590 stay on the anatomy of this crash for just a 00:08:38.590 --> 00:08:42.769 moment longer. The IBM COBOL shock. I love that 00:08:42.769 --> 00:08:46.009 name, by the way. The COBOL shock of 26. It sounds 00:08:46.009 --> 00:08:47.950 like a chapter title in an economics textbook. 00:08:48.190 --> 00:08:50.629 It very well might be. But to truly understand 00:08:50.629 --> 00:08:53.470 the sheer magnitude of the shock, you have to 00:08:53.470 --> 00:08:57.169 remember Y2K. Oh, man. The year 2000 bug. Yes. 00:08:57.490 --> 00:09:00.700 I remember the panic vividly. People genuinely 00:09:00.700 --> 00:09:02.460 thought planes were going to fall out of the 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:05.059 sky or that the banks were going to reset everyone's 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:07.899 accounts to the year 1900. People were literally 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:10.559 buying bunkers and hoarding canned food. And 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:12.740 while the apocalyptic stuff was overblown, the 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:15.659 economic panic was very real and the cost to 00:09:15.659 --> 00:09:19.330 fix it was astronomical. Back in the late 90s, 00:09:19.330 --> 00:09:21.389 the world spent somewhere between 300 and 600 00:09:21.389 --> 00:09:24.830 billion dollars globally on Y2K remediation. 00:09:24.990 --> 00:09:27.649 Just to fix the date formatting in code. Just 00:09:27.649 --> 00:09:30.230 for that. The U .S. alone spent about 100 billion. 00:09:30.470 --> 00:09:32.330 And what were they actually spending that money 00:09:32.330 --> 00:09:35.950 on? Humans. millions and millions of human hours. 00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:39.129 You had armies of programmers just staring at 00:09:39.129 --> 00:09:41.889 lines of legacy code on glowing green screens, 00:09:42.250 --> 00:09:45.070 manually finding those two -digit date fields 00:09:45.070 --> 00:09:48.490 and fixing them one by one. So that massive cost, 00:09:48.710 --> 00:09:51.929 that immense friction, was basically value locked 00:09:51.929 --> 00:09:54.769 up in manual labor. Yes, it was a massive transfer 00:09:54.769 --> 00:09:57.230 of wealth to the people who knew the obscure 00:09:57.230 --> 00:09:59.649 language. And that friction was IBM's profit 00:09:59.649 --> 00:10:02.720 margin. Exactly. Maintenance is essentially a 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.100 hidden tax on the broader economy, but it is 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:07.960 a massive, reliable revenue stream for the maintainers. 00:10:08.259 --> 00:10:11.139 Now, fast forward to yesterday, February 2026. 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:13.559 Claude Code comes out. Do you remember the exact 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:16.240 title of that anthropic blog post? I do. It was 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:19.480 How AI Helps Break the Cost Barrier to COBOL 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:21.779 Modernization. Right. And the market read that 00:10:21.779 --> 00:10:23.840 headline and understood the implication immediately. 00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:27.580 If AI can scan for vulnerabilities, map complex 00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:29.580 dependencies, and rewrite code exponentially, 00:10:33.370 --> 00:10:35.730 You don't need the army of consultants anymore. 00:10:35.929 --> 00:10:38.289 You don't. And what's wild is that it's not just 00:10:38.289 --> 00:10:41.129 IBM taking the hit. Look at the contagion effect. 00:10:41.429 --> 00:10:42.830 Yeah, I was looking at the tickers this morning. 00:10:42.889 --> 00:10:46.409 Adobe, Salesforce, ServiceNow. Yeah. They are 00:10:46.409 --> 00:10:48.610 all taking an absolute beating. They're down 00:10:48.610 --> 00:10:52.289 25 to 30 percent in February alone. But why them? 00:10:52.789 --> 00:10:55.190 They aren't mainframe companies. They don't deal 00:10:55.190 --> 00:10:58.710 in COBOL. They are the cool, modern SaaS companies, 00:10:59.029 --> 00:11:02.289 the cloud companies. They are, but they are seat 00:11:02.289 --> 00:11:05.649 -based software companies. Think about it. Their 00:11:05.649 --> 00:11:08.230 entire business model relies on selling licenses 00:11:08.230 --> 00:11:11.730 to human beings to do work. If AI drastically 00:11:11.730 --> 00:11:14.210 reduces the number of humans needed to do that 00:11:14.210 --> 00:11:16.350 work, or if the AI actually becomes the worker 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:19.049 itself, the whole seat count logic collapses. 00:11:19.409 --> 00:11:21.590 So if I run a marketing department of 50 people 00:11:21.590 --> 00:11:24.299 and... We all use Salesforce. Right. And I realized 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:27.080 I can replace 45 of them with a team of five 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:30.179 people managing an AI agent swarm. Then Salesforce 00:11:30.179 --> 00:11:33.100 just sold 45 fewer licenses to your company. 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:36.639 The market is aggressively pricing in a massive 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:39.500 systemic contraction in software as a service 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:43.039 revenues. The old equation of more revenue equals 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:45.779 more headcount is fundamentally broken. And the 00:11:45.779 --> 00:11:48.779 cybersecurity stocks, they are tanking too. I 00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:50.779 saw CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks taking 00:11:50.779 --> 00:11:53.200 massive hits yesterday afternoon. It's the exact 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:56.720 same logic. Why do corporations pay these massive 00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:59.820 multi -million dollar retainers for cybersecurity 00:11:59.820 --> 00:12:02.440 monitoring? Because humans are slow. Because 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:04.210 humans are slow. slow at finding vulnerabilities. 00:12:04.629 --> 00:12:08.250 We are inherently reactive. If an AI can scan 00:12:08.250 --> 00:12:10.629 millions of lines of code for zero -day vulnerabilities 00:12:10.629 --> 00:12:13.809 instantly and patch them in real time, what the 00:12:13.809 --> 00:12:16.730 industry is calling self -healing cloned, do 00:12:16.730 --> 00:12:18.769 you really need that same massive cybersecurity 00:12:18.769 --> 00:12:21.210 contract? Probably not. You certainly don't need 00:12:21.210 --> 00:12:23.669 the giant army of tier one analysts sitting in 00:12:23.669 --> 00:12:25.549 the security operations center, clishing through 00:12:25.549 --> 00:12:28.129 alerts. So the market isn't reacting to these 00:12:28.129 --> 00:12:30.509 companies failing today. It's a repricing of 00:12:30.509 --> 00:12:32.639 the future. That is the perfect way to put it. 00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:35.740 The sentiment on Wall Street has violently shifted 00:12:35.740 --> 00:12:39.519 from growth is inevitable to obsolescence is 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:42.159 possible. Investors are waking up and realizing 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:44.600 that the traditional moat of complex intellectual 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:48.000 property is being rapidly bridged by AI. OK, 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:50.279 this brings us to the core concept of today's 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:53.720 deep dive, the interregnum and the AI depression. 00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:56.779 These are crucial terms. They are heavily used 00:12:56.779 --> 00:12:59.059 by Brian Rommel in the Read Multiplex series, 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:01.299 and they give us the vocabulary to understand 00:13:01.299 --> 00:13:05.120 this chaos. So an interregnum. Historically, 00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:07.220 that refers to the period between two kings, 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:09.820 right? Exactly. The old king is dead, but the 00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:12.480 new king hasn't been crowned yet. Chaos. Absolute 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:15.480 chaos. It is a transitional time of deep uncertainty. 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:18.600 The old rules no longer work, but the new rules 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:20.919 haven't been firmly established yet. And in this 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:24.019 context, the AI depression... we need to be clear 00:13:24.019 --> 00:13:26.200 doesn't mean we are all going to be living in 00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:28.679 shanty towns or standing in soup lines no that's 00:13:28.679 --> 00:13:30.659 an important distinction we aren't talking about 00:13:30.659 --> 00:13:32.460 a famine we aren't talking about the dust bowl 00:13:32.460 --> 00:13:35.139 of the 1930s right we are talking about a depression 00:13:35.139 --> 00:13:38.950 of old economy values and valuations Yes. The 00:13:38.950 --> 00:13:41.070 things we used to think were highly valuable, 00:13:41.309 --> 00:13:44.549 memorizing complex coding syntax, middle management 00:13:44.549 --> 00:13:47.610 coordination, routine data analysis, just knowing 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:50.409 where the corporate files are stored, those specific 00:13:50.409 --> 00:13:53.389 skills are rapidly losing their value. They are 00:13:53.389 --> 00:13:56.330 deflationary in nature now. Brian describes this 00:13:56.330 --> 00:13:58.889 period as delivering a one -two punch. He does. 00:13:59.070 --> 00:14:01.769 Punch number one is happening right now, in 2026. 00:14:02.009 --> 00:14:05.289 That is the cognitive disruption. AI collapsing 00:14:05.289 --> 00:14:09.519 the cost of cognition. Exactly. Thinking. Analyzing, 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:11.899 synthesizing, deciding. The things that used 00:14:11.899 --> 00:14:15.080 to be very expensive and uniquely human are becoming 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:17.820 cheap and incredibly abundant. And punch number 00:14:17.820 --> 00:14:20.440 two. That comes around 2028. And that is robotics 00:14:20.440 --> 00:14:22.659 in the physical world. But we will get to that 00:14:22.659 --> 00:14:25.620 later. Right now, society is reeling from the 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:27.799 first punch. It feels completely unprecedented 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:29.460 when you're living through it. But the source 00:14:29.460 --> 00:14:32.039 material reminds us that we have actually seen 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:34.019 this movie before. We absolutely have. This is 00:14:34.019 --> 00:14:36.299 the classic cycle of technological disruption. 00:14:36.580 --> 00:14:38.629 And looking at history. is really the only way 00:14:38.629 --> 00:14:40.809 to stay sane right now. Think about the dawn 00:14:40.809 --> 00:14:43.950 of the internet era. Sure. Craigslist completely 00:14:43.950 --> 00:14:46.090 destroyed the newspaper classifieds. It's the 00:14:46.090 --> 00:14:48.730 perfect example. Newspapers used to make an absolute 00:14:48.730 --> 00:14:51.649 fortune on local classified ads. If you wanted 00:14:51.649 --> 00:14:54.250 to sell a used bike or hire a local gardener 00:14:54.250 --> 00:14:57.529 in 1990, you had to pay the newspaper. They held 00:14:57.529 --> 00:15:00.350 a strict monopoly on local information distribution. 00:15:00.830 --> 00:15:04.309 And then comes Craigslist. Free. Instant. Global. 00:15:04.590 --> 00:15:07.779 And the newspapers lost billions, their revenue 00:15:07.779 --> 00:15:10.340 models were absolutely decimated. But, and this 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:13.080 is the key, did the underlying value of selling 00:15:13.080 --> 00:15:15.740 a bike disappear? No, it actually became easier. 00:15:15.879 --> 00:15:18.539 The friction was removed. The internet collapsed 00:15:18.539 --> 00:15:20.899 the distribution costs. And we saw it with music 00:15:20.899 --> 00:15:22.899 too. I mean, I remember Tower Records. I spent 00:15:22.899 --> 00:15:25.779 half my teenage years browsing CDs in there. 00:15:25.879 --> 00:15:28.519 Right. Blockbuster, Borders, bookstores, Kodak, 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:31.200 local travel agencies, all of these massive legacy 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:34.159 industries were decimated. But here's the profound 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:37.230 insight from Reed Multiplex. The underlying technology 00:15:37.230 --> 00:15:40.230 didn't fail. It didn't destroy net value in the 00:15:40.230 --> 00:15:43.690 economy. It multiplied it. Right. We lost Blockbuster, 00:15:43.730 --> 00:15:45.710 which was sad for Friday nights, but we got Netflix. 00:15:45.830 --> 00:15:48.129 Yeah. We lost the physical yellow pages, but 00:15:48.129 --> 00:15:50.529 we got Google. We lost the neighborhood travel 00:15:50.529 --> 00:15:52.710 agent, but we got Expedia and Airbnb. We got 00:15:52.710 --> 00:15:56.090 Meta, got Amazon. The net value of the global 00:15:56.090 --> 00:15:59.840 economy grew exponentially, but... and this is 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:02.120 the very painful part for people living through 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:05.379 it, if you were holding stock in Blockbuster 00:16:05.379 --> 00:16:08.379 in 2010. You were in a depression. You were in 00:16:08.379 --> 00:16:10.600 a localized depression of your specific value. 00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:13.840 The internet fundamentally reshaped how we access 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:16.899 value. AI is repeating this exact same pattern 00:16:16.899 --> 00:16:19.440 right now, but it's going significantly deeper. 00:16:19.580 --> 00:16:21.679 Deeper how? Because the internet changed a lot. 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:23.840 Because the internet collapsed distribution costs. 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:25.659 Moving bits around the world became essentially 00:16:25.659 --> 00:16:28.299 free, but AI is collapsing cognition costs. The 00:16:28.299 --> 00:16:30.379 cost of thought itself. The cost of intelligence, 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:33.700 of logical synthesis. White collar workflows, 00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:36.519 coding, strategic planning, legal analysis, middle 00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:38.879 management are collapsing right now, just like 00:16:38.879 --> 00:16:40.460 the manual typesetters did when the printing 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:42.559 press was invented or when desktop publishing 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:45.210 arrived in the 80s. I want to touch on that specific 00:16:45.210 --> 00:16:48.090 comparison to the PC era. The source material 00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:51.669 mentions Smith Corona. Ah, yes. The absolute 00:16:51.669 --> 00:16:54.029 king of the typewriter industry. Bankrupt in 00:16:54.029 --> 00:16:57.850 1995. And Wang Laboratories. The giant of dedicated 00:16:57.850 --> 00:17:01.309 word processors. Bankrupt in 1992. Now, they 00:17:01.309 --> 00:17:03.330 didn't go bankrupt because people suddenly stopped 00:17:03.330 --> 00:17:05.789 writing. People wrote more. Exactly. People wrote 00:17:05.789 --> 00:17:08.869 way more. But the tool changed and the entire 00:17:08.869 --> 00:17:11.450 business model attached to the old scarce tool 00:17:11.450 --> 00:17:15.259 died. Wang Labs sold these dedicated word processing 00:17:15.259 --> 00:17:17.980 machines for thousands and thousands of dollars. 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:21.099 PC software sold for a few hundred. The value 00:17:21.099 --> 00:17:22.880 completely migrated from the hardware to the 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:25.319 software. So if you are a corporate coder today 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:28.180 or a middle manager or a financial analyst, you 00:17:28.180 --> 00:17:30.640 are essentially standing in the exact same shoes 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:34.279 as a manual typesetter in 1990. That is the harsh, 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:36.759 unvarnished reality. And that is exactly why 00:17:36.759 --> 00:17:38.940 we are seeing the grief and the dark night of 00:17:38.940 --> 00:17:40.920 the soul that Brian talks about so much in his 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:43.460 hero's journey. Let's pivot to that framework 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:47.200 because this entire 5 ,000 Days series is structured 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:49.279 around Joseph Campbell's monomyth, The Hero's 00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:52.619 Journey. And frankly, Knowing where we are on 00:17:52.619 --> 00:17:54.500 that map really helps. It gives you psychological 00:17:54.500 --> 00:17:57.259 context. It helps immensely. It gives a narrative 00:17:57.259 --> 00:18:00.599 structure to the chaos. We are currently discussing 00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:04.099 part 15 of the RID Multiplex series today. If 00:18:04.099 --> 00:18:05.720 you've been following along with the deep dives, 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:08.500 you know the major milestones. Let's do a quick 00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:10.839 recap for the listener who might just be jumping 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:13.160 in today because their portfolio is crashing. 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.250 Sure. Part one was the departure. Leaving the 00:18:16.250 --> 00:18:18.809 old familiar world of traditional work. Part 00:18:18.809 --> 00:18:21.470 two was the grief, where Brian applied the Kubler 00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:24.670 -Ross stages of grief to career loss. Which is 00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:27.049 incredibly relevant today. I think a massive 00:18:27.049 --> 00:18:29.150 portion of Wall Street is currently stuck in 00:18:29.150 --> 00:18:32.430 denial or moving very quickly into anger. Extremely 00:18:32.430 --> 00:18:34.950 relevant. Then we move through the warning, looking 00:18:34.950 --> 00:18:38.609 at Kut Vonnegut's novel Player Piano, which brilliantly 00:18:38.609 --> 00:18:41.250 predicted a world where machines do all the useful 00:18:41.250 --> 00:18:43.430 work and humans lose their sense of purpose. 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:46.779 We eventually move through reframing into skilling, 00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:49.259 which is about learning to see the loss of routine, 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:52.380 repetitive skills as a form of liberation rather 00:18:52.380 --> 00:18:54.480 than a tragedy. And then the dark night of the 00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:57.599 soul. Right. Part six, the deep existential crisis. 00:18:57.900 --> 00:19:01.880 And part 13 was the guilds, the new social structures 00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:04.880 that will replace corporate hierarchies. But 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:07.599 today, right now, with part 15 and this IBM crash, 00:19:07.880 --> 00:19:10.980 we are firmly in the ordeal. The ordeal. That 00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:14.039 sounds well. painful. In the classic hero's journey, 00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:17.400 the ordeal is the central defining crisis. It's 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:19.339 the point where the hero confronts their greatest 00:19:19.339 --> 00:19:22.299 fear. Symbolically, it is the death of the old 00:19:22.299 --> 00:19:24.220 self. And the valuation wipeout on the stock 00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:26.980 market today is just the visible economic scar 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:30.900 of this ordeal. Exactly. But it's also a deeply 00:19:30.900 --> 00:19:35.279 internal ordeal. It is the what do you do identity 00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:37.700 crisis. Think about it. For generations, we have 00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:40.240 anchored our entire identity in our job titles. 00:19:40.579 --> 00:19:43.519 I am a lawyer. I am a software engineer. I am 00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:45.839 an accountant. When the open market suddenly 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:49.160 says we actually don't need humans to do that 00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:52.019 specific task anymore, it's not just an economic 00:19:52.019 --> 00:19:54.279 hit to your wallet. It's a strike at your soul. 00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:56.440 It feels like the ground is just completely falling 00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:59.299 out from under you. becoming obsolete as a person. 00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:01.440 It absolutely feels that way. But the ordeal 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:04.380 is always followed by the reward, the boon. And 00:20:04.380 --> 00:20:06.319 that is what we need to focus our attention on 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:09.140 today. The massive shift to abundance. Brian 00:20:09.140 --> 00:20:11.059 Rowan talks about the bull case for this. Yeah. 00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:12.720 Because let's be honest, right now, everything 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:14.740 in the news sounds like a bear case. The bull 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.619 case is just simple, fundamental economics, even 00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:19.779 if it feels deeply counterintuitive when you 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:22.420 are scared. Dramatically higher productivity 00:20:22.420 --> 00:20:25.700 equals significantly lower prices. Lower prices 00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:31.799 mean higher real So if the cost of basic legal 00:20:31.799 --> 00:20:34.700 work drops to near zero, legal services become 00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:37.279 abundant for everyone. If the cost of writing 00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:40.059 code drops to zero, Highly customized software 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:43.299 becomes abundant. Exactly. Imagine a world where 00:20:43.299 --> 00:20:46.059 having a custom enterprise -grade app built for 00:20:46.059 --> 00:20:48.940 your small local business costs $5 instead of 00:20:48.940 --> 00:20:52.700 $50 ,000. Imagine complex legal contracts costing 00:20:52.700 --> 00:20:56.279 pennies to draft and review. This is deflationary 00:20:56.279 --> 00:20:58.640 in the absolute best way possible for the consumer. 00:20:58.940 --> 00:21:01.259 And the most exciting part for me is that the 00:21:01.259 --> 00:21:03.440 cost to start a new business is basically dropping 00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:06.259 to zero. This brings us to the zero human company 00:21:06.259 --> 00:21:09.369 concept. This absolutely blew my mind when I 00:21:09.369 --> 00:21:11.589 first read it. And we need to emphasize this 00:21:11.589 --> 00:21:13.809 isn't theoretical. Brian actually built this. 00:21:13.930 --> 00:21:16.170 He did. It is a live functioning experiment. 00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:18.809 He describes it as the world's first fully autonomous 00:21:18.809 --> 00:21:21.009 enterprise. Walk us through the setup of this 00:21:21.009 --> 00:21:23.349 because people talk about AI agents all the time. 00:21:23.369 --> 00:21:25.509 But this is next level. This is sci -fi stuff 00:21:25.509 --> 00:21:28.549 happening today. OK, so picture this. You have 00:21:28.549 --> 00:21:31.349 a solo founder, Brian, sitting with just a laptop. 00:21:31.890 --> 00:21:35.730 But the company has a full staff. It has AI employees 00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:38.369 autonomously handling high -level strategy, daily 00:21:38.369 --> 00:21:42.829 operations, and get this, actual live sales calls. 00:21:43.089 --> 00:21:45.309 Wait, sales calls, like literally talking on 00:21:45.309 --> 00:21:48.529 the phone to prospects? Yes. Interacting via 00:21:48.529 --> 00:21:52.420 voice, using... cloned voices that sound completely 00:21:52.420 --> 00:21:55.220 indistinguishable from real human beings. The 00:21:55.220 --> 00:21:57.599 AI system handles complex email negotiations. 00:21:58.019 --> 00:22:01.380 It actively closes deals. It even monitors and 00:22:01.380 --> 00:22:03.819 bids on surplus hardware auctions in real time. 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:05.640 And this company actually did something real 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:07.299 in the market. It wasn't just a closed loop simulation. 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:10.539 No, it was completely real. The AI revived dormant 00:22:10.539 --> 00:22:12.759 intellectual property from a bankrupt firm. It 00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:15.380 ingested terabytes of disorganized data to reconstruct 00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:18.259 and rebuild value. And here's the absolute kicker. 00:22:18.299 --> 00:22:20.440 It successfully completed a fine. financial transaction 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:23.279 with another zero -human company. Wait, two completely 00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:26.160 AI -run companies doing business deals with each 00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.400 other? Yes, and they use a new conceptual currency 00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:30.599 called Jewelwork, which is an energy -backed 00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:32.819 metric. Hold on, Jewelwork, explain that. It's 00:22:32.819 --> 00:22:34.859 a brilliant concept Brian introduces for the 00:22:34.859 --> 00:22:38.240 interregnum. If AI does all the physical and 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:40.960 cognitive work, and AI fundamentally runs on 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:43.779 electricity and compute, then the most basic 00:22:43.779 --> 00:22:46.799 fundamental unit of economic value becomes the 00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:50.579 jewel. It's a theoretical shift away from debt 00:22:50.579 --> 00:22:53.220 backed fiat currency like the U .S. dollar to 00:22:53.220 --> 00:22:56.500 pure energy backed value. That is just wild. 00:22:56.680 --> 00:22:59.680 It's like a completely parallel economy spinning 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:01.920 up while the old one crashes. It is the blueprint 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.859 for the future. But the immediate practical takeaway 00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:07.099 for the listener right now is that a solo founder 00:23:07.099 --> 00:23:10.220 can now autonomously run a complex global operation 00:23:10.220 --> 00:23:13.220 that used to require a staff of 50 people and 00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:15.599 a million dollars in venture capital. Now you 00:23:15.599 --> 00:23:17.670 literally just need a laptop. internet connection 00:23:17.670 --> 00:23:20.430 and vision. So to tie it back to the hero's journey, 00:23:20.569 --> 00:23:22.809 the ordeal is the death of the traditional employee, 00:23:23.109 --> 00:23:26.230 but the reward is the birth of the hyper -empowered 00:23:26.230 --> 00:23:28.630 entrepreneur. That is the crucial pivot. The 00:23:28.630 --> 00:23:31.150 interregnum absolutely destroys legacy jobs, 00:23:31.250 --> 00:23:34.029 but it creates millions of creators. But let's 00:23:34.029 --> 00:23:36.910 be real for a second. Not everyone wants to run 00:23:36.910 --> 00:23:40.210 a fully autonomous AI software company. Not everyone 00:23:40.210 --> 00:23:43.450 is a tech visionary or wants to be a CEO. And 00:23:43.450 --> 00:23:45.470 this is where the source material gets incredibly 00:23:45.470 --> 00:23:49.000 practical and grounded. Brian outlines 10 specific 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.700 business models that will not just survive, but 00:23:51.700 --> 00:23:54.380 actively thrive in this interregnum. These are 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:57.400 fascinating because they aren't just lazy, use 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:00.759 AI to do X ideas. They are deep hybrid models. 00:24:00.940 --> 00:24:03.420 They beautifully combine the massive leverage 00:24:03.420 --> 00:24:07.160 of AI with the one single thing AI cannot authentically 00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:10.339 replicate, human essence. Let's go through them 00:24:10.339 --> 00:24:12.079 in detail, because if you were listening to this 00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:14.240 on your commute wondering, what on earth do I 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:16.859 do with my career now? One of these might spark 00:24:16.859 --> 00:24:18.839 a completely new direction for you. Let's dive 00:24:18.839 --> 00:24:21.720 in. Number one, willow web textiles. This is 00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:23.480 a beautiful example of what we call the tactile 00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:26.039 premium. The core concept here is small batch 00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:29.299 human hand weaving. Hand weaving, really? In 00:24:29.299 --> 00:24:31.900 the age of super intelligent AI. That sounds 00:24:31.900 --> 00:24:34.359 like we were going backward to the 1800s. It 00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:36.480 sounds counterintuitive, but especially in the 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.710 age of AI, it makes perfect economic sense. think 00:24:39.710 --> 00:24:42.990 about it systemically the ai completely handles 00:24:42.990 --> 00:24:45.130 the global supply chain for the raw materials 00:24:45.130 --> 00:24:48.750 the ai instantly designs incredibly complex beautiful 00:24:48.750 --> 00:24:52.009 patterns based on market trends the ai handles 00:24:52.009 --> 00:24:54.390 the e -commerce logistics the targeted marketing 00:24:54.390 --> 00:24:57.690 and the customer service all the boring friction 00:24:57.690 --> 00:25:00.509 heavy back office stuff is cost minimized to 00:25:00.509 --> 00:25:03.210 near zero so the human being is entirely free 00:25:03.210 --> 00:25:06.539 to just Exactly. The human provides the tactile 00:25:06.539 --> 00:25:09.480 element, the soul. In a future world of infinite 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:11.559 digital abundance where everything is perfectly 00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:14.339 manufactured by robots, a physical, slightly 00:25:14.339 --> 00:25:17.119 imperfect, authentically human -made object becomes 00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:19.710 the ultimate luxury item. We are moving from 00:25:19.710 --> 00:25:22.309 a paradigm of perfect and mass -produced to imperfect 00:25:22.309 --> 00:25:24.910 and deeply human. The de -skilling in the corporate 00:25:24.910 --> 00:25:27.210 office leads directly to a massive re -skilling 00:25:27.210 --> 00:25:29.369 in traditional craft. I can completely see that. 00:25:29.470 --> 00:25:31.549 I know for a fact I would pay a premium for a 00:25:31.549 --> 00:25:33.349 blanket if I knew an actual human artist and 00:25:33.349 --> 00:25:35.049 made it, especially if I knew the personal story 00:25:35.049 --> 00:25:37.529 behind it. Exactly. That human story is the new 00:25:37.529 --> 00:25:40.769 premium. Okay, number two. Solosphere retreats. 00:25:40.809 --> 00:25:43.269 This essentially sounds like a spa, but it's 00:25:43.269 --> 00:25:46.640 a spa for the soul. The core concept is human 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:49.539 guided nature immersion and digital detox. Why 00:25:49.539 --> 00:25:51.920 does a business like this work specifically right 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:54.740 now? during the AI depression? Because of the 00:25:54.740 --> 00:25:56.740 massive identity crisis we just talked about. 00:25:56.839 --> 00:25:59.720 As millions of people lose their core job identity, 00:26:00.059 --> 00:26:01.980 they're going to be desperately searching for 00:26:01.980 --> 00:26:04.259 grounding and meaning. They will feel incredibly 00:26:04.259 --> 00:26:07.220 disconnected from reality. There will be a massive 00:26:07.220 --> 00:26:11.579 booming demand for pure connection, real uninterrupted 00:26:11.579 --> 00:26:14.539 human to human connection in nature. So in this 00:26:14.539 --> 00:26:16.880 model, the AI handles all the complex logistics. 00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:20.220 The bookings, the dynamic pricing, the hyper 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:22.980 personalization of the itinerary, managing complex 00:26:22.980 --> 00:26:25.400 dietary restrictions for the kitchen. Yes. And 00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:27.880 the humans provide the actual guidance, the empathy, 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:29.640 the literal hand on the shoulder during a tough 00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:32.180 moment. You simply cannot automate authentic 00:26:32.180 --> 00:26:34.500 empathy. That makes total sense. Number three, 00:26:34.619 --> 00:26:37.180 Ancestry Forge Archives. This directly touches 00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:39.539 on the Save Wisdom project that Brian often mentions. 00:26:39.700 --> 00:26:42.140 As traditional job titles fade into history, 00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:44.940 people will want, they will need to invest in 00:26:44.940 --> 00:26:47.180 preserving their personal and family. stories. 00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:50.099 It's legacy preservation, like a digital family 00:26:50.099 --> 00:26:52.759 vault. Right. It answers the profound question, 00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:56.400 who was I and who was my family if I wasn't just 00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.200 a corporate accountant? In this business, AI 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:01.740 does the heavy lifting. It scans and organizes 00:27:01.740 --> 00:27:04.460 thousands of old photos. It perfectly transcribes 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:07.220 hours of messy audio journals. It even helps 00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:09.460 weave those fragments into a coherent narrative 00:27:09.460 --> 00:27:12.500 arc. But the true value of the business is tapping 00:27:12.500 --> 00:27:15.319 into the deep human desire to be remembered and 00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:18.470 understood. I love that one. Number four. essence 00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:21.390 path guild platforms this is a really big one 00:27:21.390 --> 00:27:24.089 guilds we've talked extensively about guilds 00:27:24.089 --> 00:27:25.890 before on the show this is part 13 of the series 00:27:25.890 --> 00:27:28.849 making a comeback exactly with the old legacy 00:27:28.849 --> 00:27:31.130 institutions drastically weakening we're talking 00:27:31.130 --> 00:27:33.230 about massive corporations traditional labor 00:27:33.230 --> 00:27:36.200 unions even four -year universities People need 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:40.079 new tribes. They need localized mutual aid. This 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:42.720 specific business model is about building and 00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:45.259 facilitating decentralized skill -sharing communities. 00:27:45.700 --> 00:27:48.759 So how does AI fit into a community? Does AI 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:52.180 supply the coordination? AI is the ultimate community 00:27:52.180 --> 00:27:55.589 admin. AI perfectly matches the master mentor 00:27:55.589 --> 00:27:58.309 to the ideal apprentice based on learning styles. 00:27:58.549 --> 00:28:00.630 It handles the scheduling, the credentialing, 00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:03.089 the dispute resolution, but the humans supply 00:28:03.089 --> 00:28:05.829 the actual trust. You don't join a guild for 00:28:05.829 --> 00:28:08.190 the software. You join a guild to belong to a 00:28:08.190 --> 00:28:10.789 trusted human network. Right. Okay. Number five, 00:28:10.930 --> 00:28:14.349 tactile harmony instruments. This is very similar 00:28:14.349 --> 00:28:18.390 to the textiles concept. Custom, high -end, analog 00:28:18.390 --> 00:28:21.869 musical tools. The unplug renaissance. Yes. As 00:28:21.869 --> 00:28:24.529 human work completely decouples from basic survival 00:28:24.529 --> 00:28:27.569 needs, deep hobbies will become central to a 00:28:27.569 --> 00:28:29.750 person's life rather than just a weekend distraction. 00:28:30.150 --> 00:28:32.670 People will deeply desire to create and play 00:28:32.670 --> 00:28:35.130 music physically, not just listen to AI -generated 00:28:35.130 --> 00:28:37.890 tracks. The AI in this business might help perfectly 00:28:37.890 --> 00:28:40.250 tune the acoustics of the instruments or maybe 00:28:40.250 --> 00:28:42.789 even help design the ergonomic shape. But the 00:28:42.789 --> 00:28:45.069 final meticulous craftsmanship and the playing 00:28:45.069 --> 00:28:47.670 of the instrument is entirely human. Number six, 00:28:47.930 --> 00:28:50.569 purpose bridge advisors. This is the necessary 00:28:50.569 --> 00:28:52.730 evolution of the traditional financial advisor. 00:28:52.970 --> 00:28:55.730 It's moving from scarcity management to abundance 00:28:55.730 --> 00:28:59.029 navigation. Exactly. The old forms of value are 00:28:59.029 --> 00:29:01.009 draining out of the system. Your traditional 00:29:01.009 --> 00:29:03.130 stock portfolio might be crashing right now, 00:29:03.210 --> 00:29:05.369 just like we're seeing with IBM. You need a guide 00:29:05.369 --> 00:29:08.589 through the interregnum. The AI completely handles 00:29:08.589 --> 00:29:11.269 the quantitative side. It crunches the massive 00:29:11.269 --> 00:29:13.950 data sets. It finds the obscure yield. It does 00:29:13.950 --> 00:29:16.789 the tax optimization perfectly. But the human 00:29:16.789 --> 00:29:19.650 advisor builds the emotional trust and helps 00:29:19.650 --> 00:29:21.630 the client answer the much harder philosophical 00:29:21.630 --> 00:29:24.710 question. What is my wealth actually for now? 00:29:24.869 --> 00:29:28.130 That's powerful. Number seven, legacy mech revival. 00:29:28.470 --> 00:29:30.650 Now this one is for the gear heads out there. 00:29:30.730 --> 00:29:32.950 It is all about repairing and integrating old 00:29:32.950 --> 00:29:35.930 heavy industrial gear with cutting edge new robotics. 00:29:36.170 --> 00:29:38.309 Connecting the old physical world to the new 00:29:38.309 --> 00:29:40.660 digital one. Right. Global supply chains are 00:29:40.660 --> 00:29:43.000 radically realigning. There is an unbelievable 00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:45.640 amount of old, heavy iron out there in the world. 00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:48.119 Massive lathes, hydraulic presses, agricultural 00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:50.259 tractors. You can't just throw all of that away 00:29:50.259 --> 00:29:52.519 and build new from scratch. It's too carbon intensive 00:29:52.519 --> 00:29:55.440 and expensive. This business uses AI diagnostics 00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:57.759 and modern robotics to retrofit that old iron. 00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:00.319 It builds a literal bridge between legacy hardware 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:07.140 and the new AI brain. Niche books and deep storytelling. 00:30:07.930 --> 00:30:09.650 But how is this different from regular indie 00:30:09.650 --> 00:30:12.339 publishing or Amazon Kindle? Because it's hyper 00:30:12.339 --> 00:30:14.640 -niche. It leans heavily into narrative therapy. 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:17.240 The massive psychological dislocation of the 00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:19.660 dark night of the soul drives a deep, aching 00:30:19.660 --> 00:30:23.119 demand for meaning and context. People want specific, 00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:25.759 resonant stories that help them process their 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:28.759 personal transition. AI dramatically lowers the 00:30:28.759 --> 00:30:31.140 production cost formatting, editing, translating, 00:30:31.339 --> 00:30:33.740 distributing the book, but the human curation 00:30:33.740 --> 00:30:36.299 and the human author preserve the necessary emotional 00:30:36.299 --> 00:30:38.700 depth that readers are craving. Number nine. 00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:41.539 Flow Forge Biohacks. This one is fascinating. 00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:44.299 It references the psychologist Mahali Siksant 00:30:44.299 --> 00:30:46.720 Mahali, the concept of flow state. Right, getting 00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:48.960 completely in the zone. Yeah. Losing track of 00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:51.460 time. In a de -skilled, hyper -abundant world 00:30:51.460 --> 00:30:53.799 where the machine does all the routine, boring 00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:57.680 tasks, the human ability to deeply focus, to 00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:00.200 enter a sustained flow state for creative work, 00:31:00.339 --> 00:31:04.269 becomes the ultimate competitive advantage. This 00:31:04.269 --> 00:31:06.589 business model creates and sells specialized 00:31:06.589 --> 00:31:09.369 supplements, customized wearables, or guided 00:31:09.369 --> 00:31:11.650 protocols specifically designed to help the human 00:31:11.650 --> 00:31:14.569 brain achieve and maintain that deep flow. It's 00:31:14.569 --> 00:31:17.190 focusing the human mind in an intensely distracting 00:31:17.190 --> 00:31:21.059 digital world. And finally, number 10, Nexus 00:31:21.059 --> 00:31:23.859 Resilient Foods. Community supported vertical 00:31:23.859 --> 00:31:26.980 farms heavily augmented with robotics. This directly 00:31:26.980 --> 00:31:29.559 addresses the deep societal fear of global supply 00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:31.500 chain collapse. Food security is going to be 00:31:31.500 --> 00:31:34.640 massive. The AI and the harvesting robots drastically 00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:37.160 lower the actual cost of growing the calories, 00:31:37.220 --> 00:31:39.400 the lettuce, the tomatoes. They optimize the 00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:41.859 water, the light, the nutrients perfectly. But 00:31:41.859 --> 00:31:44.339 the local community ownership model builds a 00:31:44.339 --> 00:31:47.180 brand loyalty in the local resilience. It is 00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:49.640 highly advanced, high -tech farming, but with 00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:51.539 the heart and soul of a local neighborhood co 00:31:51.539 --> 00:31:53.619 -op. So stepping back and looking at all 10 of 00:31:53.619 --> 00:31:55.859 these concepts, there is a very clear defining 00:31:55.859 --> 00:32:00.099 pattern. The pattern is undeniable. The AI seamlessly 00:32:00.099 --> 00:32:03.140 handles the logic, the complex logistics, and 00:32:03.140 --> 00:32:06.359 the repetitive labor. The humans fiercely handle 00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:08.460 the meaning, the emotional connection, and the 00:32:08.460 --> 00:32:10.960 tactile physical experience. It's a true partnership. 00:32:11.279 --> 00:32:14.440 It is a profound symbiosis. Okay, so that maps 00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:17.619 out the chaotic transitional landscape of 2026. 00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:20.900 But the source material explicitly warns us that 00:32:20.900 --> 00:32:22.900 we are only in the very first phase of this. 00:32:23.259 --> 00:32:25.160 We mentioned the second punch earlier. Yes, the 00:32:25.160 --> 00:32:27.900 second punch. Roughly arriving at scale by 2028. 00:32:28.039 --> 00:32:30.599 What exactly happens in 2028? We experience the 00:32:30.599 --> 00:32:33.279 massive transition from purely virtual AI agents, 00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:35.700 the things we have right now, like clod code 00:32:35.700 --> 00:32:39.039 rewriting software, to physical embodied robotics. 00:32:39.420 --> 00:32:41.880 The intelligence leaves the server farm and literally 00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:44.619 enters the physical world. Yes. Massive disruption 00:32:44.619 --> 00:32:46.720 in physical manufacturing, global logistics, 00:32:47.099 --> 00:32:49.940 construction, and crucially, elder care. The 00:32:49.940 --> 00:32:51.819 fundamental cost of doing all these physical 00:32:51.819 --> 00:32:54.240 things will absolutely... So just to make the 00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:56.759 parallel clear, in the same way that cloud code 00:32:56.759 --> 00:32:59.960 collapsed the massive human cost of COBOL software 00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:03.720 maintenance yesterday, a humanoid robot in 2028 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.619 will collapse the cost of, say, folding laundry 00:33:06.619 --> 00:33:09.779 or framing a house. Exactly. The zero human company 00:33:09.779 --> 00:33:12.240 model expands out of the digital realm and directly 00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:15.400 into physical tasks. That sounds completely terrifying 00:33:15.400 --> 00:33:18.000 for blue collar work. If white collar is getting 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:21.160 wiped out now, blue collar is next. It is deeply 00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:23.440 disruptive. There's no sugarcoating that. But 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:24.960 we have to look at the ultimate destination, 00:33:25.319 --> 00:33:28.460 the end of scarcity. This is the promised land 00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:30.660 that Brian Morrell points us toward at the end 00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:33.339 of the 5 ,000 days. The boon at the end of the 00:33:33.339 --> 00:33:35.960 hero's journey. Yes. When human labor completely 00:33:35.960 --> 00:33:39.039 decouples from basic survival, leisure naturally 00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:42.099 turns into unbridled creation. And the geopolitical 00:33:42.099 --> 00:33:44.099 impact of this is just staggering. Think about 00:33:44.099 --> 00:33:47.240 it. Why do nations historically go to war? Usually 00:33:47.240 --> 00:33:49.460 they fight over resources. They fight over scarcity. 00:33:49.579 --> 00:33:52.000 Right. They fight over oil, over arable land, 00:33:52.299 --> 00:33:55.819 over fresh water. But if energy becomes functionally 00:33:55.819 --> 00:33:58.500 abundant through things like jewel work and physical 00:33:58.500 --> 00:34:00.720 labor becomes radically abundant through robotics 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:03.160 and intelligence is effectively free through 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:06.660 A .I., the fundamental driving need for zero 00:34:06.660 --> 00:34:09.260 sum violent conflict dramatically weakens the 00:34:09.260 --> 00:34:11.420 whole board changes. So the immense panic and 00:34:11.420 --> 00:34:14.360 chaos we are feeling right now, the massive IBM 00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:17.579 crash today, the fear of losing our jobs. It 00:34:17.579 --> 00:34:20.219 is just a passage. It is a birth canal. It is 00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:22.539 highly uncomfortable. It is painful. It requires 00:34:22.539 --> 00:34:25.599 a lot of deep breathing, but it is absolutely 00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:27.840 necessary to get to the other side. We have to 00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:30.519 completely reframe our mindset. We must. We have 00:34:30.519 --> 00:34:32.619 to violently reframe our core identity away from 00:34:32.619 --> 00:34:35.380 what our job title is. The open market will eventually 00:34:35.380 --> 00:34:38.519 price in this massive historic surge of productivity. 00:34:38.980 --> 00:34:42.199 The terrifying red arrows flashing on the CNBC 00:34:42.199 --> 00:34:44.619 screens today will eventually turn green again, 00:34:44.760 --> 00:34:46.659 but they will be pointing at completely different. 00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:48.440 companies. They will be pointing at the companies 00:34:48.440 --> 00:34:50.679 and the founders who adopted the abundance mindset, 00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:53.900 the ones building the hybrid models. Precisely, 00:34:53.900 --> 00:34:56.159 the people who didn't fight the interregnum but 00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:59.239 wrote it. So bringing it all home, what does 00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:01.739 this all mean for you, the listener, right now, 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:04.260 today? It means you have a very stark choice 00:35:04.260 --> 00:35:07.480 to make. You can fiercely cling to the old world, 00:35:07.619 --> 00:35:11.059 the world of forced scarcity, the world of constantly 00:35:11.059 --> 00:35:13.119 trying to protect your little corporate moat, 00:35:13.139 --> 00:35:16.039 and you can watch that value slowly drain away 00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:18.739 to nothing, exactly like IBM's market cap did 00:35:18.739 --> 00:35:22.179 yesterday. Or you can bravely embrace the interregnum. 00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:25.219 You can radically accept the chaos of the transition. 00:35:25.340 --> 00:35:27.960 You can start actively experimenting. Experiment 00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:30.699 with clarity. I love that phrase from the source. 00:35:30.980 --> 00:35:33.400 That is the defining mantra right now. Don't 00:35:33.400 --> 00:35:48.679 just sit there paralyzed. Because the IBM crash 00:35:48.679 --> 00:35:51.500 is not the end of the world. It is just a massive 00:35:51.500 --> 00:35:54.469 signal flare. It's a global wake -up call. We 00:35:54.469 --> 00:35:57.389 are only in the early messy days of a 5 ,000 00:35:57.389 --> 00:35:59.409 -day journey. And the ultimate destination is 00:35:59.409 --> 00:36:01.929 abundance. That is the mission. We have to keep 00:36:01.929 --> 00:36:04.030 our eyes on the horizon. I want to leave you 00:36:04.030 --> 00:36:06.250 with a final, deeply profound thought from the 00:36:06.250 --> 00:36:08.789 source material. It's something that really stuck 00:36:08.789 --> 00:36:10.710 with me as I was preparing for this deep dive. 00:36:11.710 --> 00:36:14.010 Artificial intelligence does not end the world. 00:36:14.369 --> 00:36:17.230 It ends the world of compulsory scarcity labor. 00:36:17.469 --> 00:36:20.829 That is such a vital, profound distinction to 00:36:20.829 --> 00:36:24.000 make right now. So ask yourself this today. As 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:26.579 the fundamental cost of doing anything drops 00:36:26.579 --> 00:36:30.320 to absolute zero, as the barrier to entry for 00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:33.599 everything completely collapses, what will you 00:36:33.599 --> 00:36:36.599 uniquely choose to create? That is genuinely 00:36:36.599 --> 00:36:39.099 the only question that matters anymore. We will 00:36:39.099 --> 00:36:41.960 be back soon with part 16, where we are going 00:36:41.960 --> 00:36:44.420 to do a massive deep dive into the practical 00:36:44.420 --> 00:36:47.019 architecture of these new guilds, how to actually 00:36:47.019 --> 00:36:48.960 build them. That is going to be a crucial discussion. 00:36:49.179 --> 00:36:50.699 We have to build a new safety net ourselves. 00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:53.559 Until then, keep your head up. The chaos is just 00:36:53.559 --> 00:36:56.440 the passage. The boon is within reach. Thanks 00:36:56.440 --> 00:36:58.400 for joining us on this deep dive. Take care of 00:36:58.400 --> 00:36:59.019 yourselves out there.