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Field Notes on AI
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FIELD NOTES // Episode 2
Artificial Intelligence
DATE: July 2, 2026
LOCATION: Somewhere between disruption and discernment
OBSERVATIONS
• AI is changing work faster than most organizations understand.
• Efficiency without judgment can become another form of waste.
• Experience still matters, especially when the tools are new.
DISCUSSION
Jarad, Brandon, and Travis explore the promises and consequences of AI, from layoffs, productivity, and changing careers to the human judgment, creativity, and experience technology cannot yet replace.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
→ AI can increase output, but it cannot replace discernment.
→ There is no compression algorithm for experience.
→ New tools should expand human potential, not simply justify cutting people.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Ask yourself: Am I using AI to think better—or simply to move faster?
END OF NOTES
WHERE TO FIND US
Brandon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brmiddle/
Travis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlzimbelman/
Jarad - www.myoldnotebooks.com; https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaradbacklund/
Transcript
Introduction and Themes
00:00:02
Jarad Backlund
Welcome to Field Notes, conversation between three friends talking about technology, family, faith, and what it means to live in a complicated world. I'm Jared, joined by Brandon and Travis, and this week, Travis is going to lead us through our topic, AI.
00:00:16
Jarad Backlund
Before we do that, let's check in. Travis, are you doing this week?
00:00:20
Travis Z
Hey, man. I'm doing really good. It's been a really good week. Our kids wrapped up school this week, so it feels like the official kickoff to summer. Everybody's pumped. We are taking a little long weekend this weekend, so I'm at an undisclosed remote location in northern Minnesota where the sun is shining.
00:00:37
Jarad Backlund
You mean your're i mean your're your doomsday bunker? Is that where you're at this week?
00:00:40
Travis Z
At the doomsday bunker. Yeah, exactly.
00:00:41
Jarad Backlund
but By the way, isn't it May?
00:00:42
Travis Z
yeah
00:00:43
Jarad Backlund
aren't Aren't you supposed to be in school till June? I remember getting out in, I think it was July.
00:00:48
Jarad Backlund
i don't remember. So what, do kids just not go to school anymore? I don't understand.
00:00:52
Travis Z
and's like It varies so much. So our kids are in like a private Montessori thing that we were maybe talking about last week a little bit here. So they're on the schedule where they actually start early and end early. And so I'm i'm cool with that. They still get all the recs done. They just have a a shifted window earlier too. So all the other kids are going to end up enjoying the last bits of summer while mine are buckling down in the books in August. Yeah.
00:01:12
Brandon
No, I'm jealous, man. I'm right behind you. I got one more week. First week of June is when the kids in the Bay Area get out of school. So I'm really hyped to have them back. And then as a teacher, I'm doing this instruction at
End of School Year and Summer Plans
00:01:25
Brandon
the college level.
00:01:25
Brandon
So all my grades are due at the end of next week.
00:01:28
Travis Z
Are you going to like peel out of the parking lot?
00:01:29
Brandon
So it's going to be a grind this week. But come June like 10th, I will be giving so much glory to God for the rest and the relaxation that I will be able to experience.
00:01:40
Jarad Backlund
Let's be clear.
00:01:41
Travis Z
Like just like leave the big black skins as you as you peel out of them?
00:01:42
Jarad Backlund
Oh yeah. Fishtail on his Huffy, right? You ride your Huffy, right? Because you you teach at that fancy school, right? They don't let you drive cars there, do you?
00:01:52
Brandon
I do have an e-bike that i driving on campus that I ride on campus, but I might i might just have to go to Oakland.
00:01:55
Travis Z
but we go
00:01:56
Jarad Backlund
See? See? We think it's a joke. It's real.
00:01:59
Brandon
I might have to go to Oakland and do some donuts in a parking lot. I'm going to be so happy.
00:02:03
Jarad Backlund
Oh, man. That's awesome. Uh, I'm trying to think one of my kids is already out because, the universe hates me. And so the other kid who goes to school. So the one's getting up and the other one's up at 10.
00:02:15
Jarad Backlund
I made him come into work with me this week and he was finishing up a, he has been coding a Roblox game. And so he was finishing that. And i mean, my coworkers said it best. They're like, both of your boys look exactly like you. And he said, they're, they're just like you. They're, they're funny.
00:02:34
Jarad Backlund
they talk a lot they're cynical i was like oh my gosh like like
00:02:41
Travis Z
Tell me more.
00:02:42
Jarad Backlund
i know i was just like i was just like and then thinking about it like yeah like that's probably what i am at work like pretty cynical pretty um pretty
00:02:42
Brandon
I thought
00:02:51
Brandon
you were going to say he was not working on a game, but like working on like a distributed cash flow or like some kind of like model of some sort. You got to be careful, Jared. Just make sure they have fun over there.
00:03:02
Jarad Backlund
i I tell you, my oldest will definitely be a CEO. He knows more about equity than probably half the people at my company, but he also figured out that his dad can do all the admin and GNA crap and he doesn't have to do any of it.
00:03:13
Jarad Backlund
So he has no intention of learning out of that. He's like, you can do that for me. I said, okay, sounds good, man. Way to delegate already.
00:03:19
Travis Z
Outsourced.
00:03:21
Brandon
Yeah.
00:03:23
Travis Z
Side note, we should do a kids and money episode at some point too. like That's a big topic of conversation.
00:03:26
Jarad Backlund
Oh yeah. Like how much they cost or no
00:03:29
Travis Z
and
00:03:31
Jarad Backlund
how much we can sell them for
00:03:31
Travis Z
all yeah How to get them to do distributed cash flows like Brandon was saying.
00:03:33
Brandon
was there
00:03:35
Travis Z
like I want to see some financial statements.
00:03:37
Jarad Backlund
yeah dude oh that's good i was thinking about like personal finance or because that's like as you know one of my hobbies or i'll tell you man the white collar gig economy is starting to heat up i think about your situation travis and maybe that's uh
00:03:39
Travis Z
Financial education maybe.
00:03:53
Jarad Backlund
something to think about, but I've got four or five friends in your situation that are these incredibly talented kind of traditional white collar workers who are, you know, all those jobs are
Work-Life Balance and Career Challenges
00:04:04
Jarad Backlund
disappearing. How many friends do we have that just got laid off in the last week from places we've worked or we've got, you know, MBA classmates from, and it's just hard to watch. and And, you know, but I look at you, man, I look at my friends, like they're thriving and they've got three or four income streams, night port nice portfolio life. I tell you, man,
00:04:23
Travis Z
That is the hot term right now is portfolio life. So...
00:04:25
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, I love it. Brandon, how about you, man? How's your week gone?
00:04:30
Brandon
Pretty good. Just a bunch of meetings at the workplace. I work with college students, faculty, administration. So I'm trying to do all my business before they all go away for the summertime and All the students graduate. So we're hustling over here in AI land, startup world. So having fun.
00:04:51
Brandon
But again, it's it's taxing and tiring when you also have the the teaching jobs and the parenting hats and like all these things. So sleep is down right now, close to E and hoping to get that more towards neutral or full in the next coming weeks.
00:05:07
Travis Z
Brandon, what's your number? what like is it is it What's normal sleep for Is it six? Is it eight? Is it four? Where are you at on the spectrum of Silicon Valley sleep habits?
00:05:15
Brandon
One hand, five hours for this last week has been the average.
00:05:18
Jarad Backlund
Whoa. Yeah, i I got six last night and my aura ring was like, you're bad. i don't stop it and go take a nap.
00:05:30
Jarad Backlund
Five. Oh, I know how you do it, man. I can't handle. On Thursday, I had 15 meetings and I know that because my son counted them and told me and then I was sad about my life. So that was my week. Other than that i think Last night I was at a bonfire with some friends and that's always just like, it's kind of turning into summer here, Silicon Valley. And so it's still cold enough at night. You can do a bonfire and a glass of wine, and sit around and, and just kind of, what did we talk about last night? We talked about the best TV show finale ever.
00:06:06
Jarad Backlund
Do you guys have a vote?
00:06:08
Brandon
Hmm. TV show finale.
00:06:13
Brandon
Man, this is for somebody that doesn't watch TV. This is a pretty hard question.
00:06:17
Jarad Backlund
No, my you're that guy.
00:06:18
Brandon
I'm
00:06:19
Jarad Backlund
You don't watch TV. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. We can't be friends anymore.
00:06:23
Brandon
yeah like great two movies i'm thinking like, Avengers movies right now. I'm thinking about how horrible the Matrix and Godfather three were like, I'm just the end game of many movie series right now, but TV, I don't know, Travis, I'm gonna have to throw that to you, man.
00:06:33
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:06:34
Travis Z
I
00:06:43
Travis Z
feel like all the ones I remember are the ones I didn't like. you know Lost, right?
00:06:47
Travis Z
Did did you watch the end of Lost? Seinfeld? Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:47
Jarad Backlund
oh yeah yes i had 10 people in my house for the ending lost and we were just screaming at the tv like that's it you're dead to me show uh okay good ones the the top 10 imdb were something like good play good place have you guys seen that uh
00:07:08
Jarad Backlund
mash and you guys are oh this is gonna be go badly mash which is super sad but really good uh breaking bad makes that kind of list uh was it pushing david no six feet under which i've never seen but my friend said it was really good and better call saul like that breaking bad spinoff which i watched some of she also said was great uh succession was okay uh kind of that rupert murdoch hbo show uh where they parodied his life but
00:07:21
Travis Z
I
00:07:35
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, so apparently you guys couldn't have joined in because you guys are sheltered in your Montessori schools.
00:07:39
Brandon
Are you saying that that this is the list of worst endings or best endings?
00:07:43
Jarad Backlund
No, these are the best. These are the best. These are the, yeah, like worse was like Seinfeld and like, we were talking about because we just watched The Boys and that one just ended.
00:07:45
Brandon
Oh, okay. I agree with Breaking
00:07:54
Jarad Backlund
And that one we liked, but it was it's controversial. Like I would say half the people who watch it say, this is terrible. i can't believe I wasted the last whatever years of my life. so little dramatic A little dramatic, but yeah.
00:08:08
Brandon
No, I really loved Breaking Bad. I remember like my wife would get mad at me because it's one of those shows that I had to like, I was like a chain smoker. I was just watching episode after episode. So I'd knock the whole thing out from the very first episode to the very last episode and probably like just a couple of weekends.
00:08:27
Brandon
And I really enjoyed that.
00:08:29
Jarad Backlund
whoa
00:08:30
Brandon
I did the same thing with The Wire. Like I watched like seven or eight seasons of The Wire in probably like a month.
00:08:33
Travis Z
No.
00:08:36
Brandon
And I don't know.
00:08:37
Jarad Backlund
and That's really tough to do. I think there's only five. so Now you you found some on the internet.
00:08:42
Brandon
I remember feeling... mean...
00:08:44
Brandon
i remember feeling
00:08:47
Jarad Backlund
You're like, i just YouTube just kept having these videos, season seven. That is intense, man. like did you
TV Shows and Cultural Impact
00:08:53
Jarad Backlund
at what point At what point in Breaking Bad did you go, man, like I could probably do this and make some good money.
00:09:01
Brandon
i mean
00:09:02
Jarad Backlund
we i Everyone I know had that thought of just like, man, like this seems like he's making a lot of money. It seems pretty easy. yeah
00:09:10
Brandon
I went to a high school in in Chicago or a south suburb of Chicago where some of those dynamics were there. Like people would actually be making probably pretty good money by selling drugs.
00:09:21
Brandon
And, you know, New Mexico or like wherever he was, was a lot different than like the south you know side of Chicago. But some of those dynamics got me into it because it reminded me a lot of like what life was like in in my own life.
00:09:34
Jarad Backlund
Yeah.
00:09:36
Brandon
So, yeah, it was a...
00:09:37
Jarad Backlund
And that's how you met that's how meant Jay-Z, right? Wasn't Jay-Z a drug dealer? That's how he said to the world?
00:09:42
Brandon
he He was.
00:09:42
Jarad Backlund
No? Snoop Dogg?
00:09:43
Brandon
He was.
00:09:43
Jarad Backlund
He was.
00:09:44
Brandon
He was in the right place at the at the right time because a lot of his posse actually got locked up, like the feds kind of sting operation.
00:09:44
Jarad Backlund
Yeah.
00:09:51
Jarad Backlund
Yeah.
00:09:53
Brandon
And he was like off in London or something performing, trying to get his rap career started. And I think that was a signal that he took in order to drop it for good. Like, let's leave the drugs alone and let's start to pour energy into something else.
00:10:07
Brandon
So.
00:10:08
Jarad Backlund
I love it.
00:10:08
Brandon
Yeah, those are some some some good ones. I was thinking Family Matters and like Boy Meets World and like old school, like when I was a kid, like how they ended.
00:10:13
Jarad Backlund
Oh, yeah.
00:10:15
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:10:16
Brandon
And you're like so sad.
00:10:17
Jarad Backlund
That TGIF or whatever, that Friday thing, like my entire life, that yeah, I remember it was like pizza and TGIF was every good member on Friday night.
00:10:26
Brandon
There was no rewind. You just had to be there or you missed the episode. Like kids these days are like, oh, I have to go to the bathroom. Let me stop. Can I? kid you It's like, no, dude, if you don't see it now, then you won't see it.
00:10:40
Travis Z
We had that moment in a hotel recently.
00:10:40
Jarad Backlund
yeah yeah
00:10:41
Travis Z
Like my my youngest asked, like, I got to go to the bathroom. Like you pause the the show that on TV. I was like, I can't. She's like, what do you mean? Pause it. i'm like, I can't. like You have to wait for, and realizing like you've grown up in a streaming world where you have control over everything.
00:10:53
Travis Z
And she didn't realize 90 second commercial breaks were a thing that we structured our lives around when we were kids.
00:10:59
Jarad Backlund
oh my gosh it's true i got really efficient i i have a mental clock in my head uh
00:11:00
Travis Z
So, yeah.
00:11:05
Travis Z
i am i I'm realizing, as you say all these shows, I've watched a lot of them, and I've never finished all of them. And maybe some psychologist could have a field day with what's going on in my head about Breaking Bad, like I binged in an entire season on a flight to India one time.
00:11:19
Travis Z
Better Call Saul I've cut episodes of, but never finished. My wife loved Parks and Rec, and I did too. I still haven't watched the last season of it. I don't know if I'm, maybe I've just been let down by so many bad Indians that i don't want to i don't want to do the last season because i don't want to be let down i'm just kind of like this is a good spot to stop you know like
00:11:36
Jarad Backlund
I, you know, I, I love a little bit of psychology and I've done enough therapy. i think the answer is that you are a bad person.
00:11:55
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:11:59
Jarad Backlund
Today we're going to talk about ai Travis is our leader. Travis, lead away.
00:12:04
Travis Z
Oh man, well, i just I'm just in the rotation here, so this is not because I've got any special knowledge. And I'm definitely deferring to you guys too, as you've got this embedded in your life. And I think that's the big theme of of everybody I talk to is that you can't not talk about this.
00:12:19
Travis Z
i run like a a little meetup group here in the Twin Cities. We meet up every month to talk about kind of industry stuff and and legal, which is where I came from most recently, though that's not
AI's Influence and Industry Layoffs
00:12:28
Travis Z
my...
00:12:29
Travis Z
area of depth. And one of them this past week, they were doing a little conference debrief and she said, everything's about AI. Can we just have a meeting today? Not about AI. And it lasted about seven minutes. And then everybody was laughing in the chat thread because it just went it right back to AI and everybody just piled right back on the train.
00:12:40
Jarad Backlund
Thank
00:12:45
Travis Z
So here we are, like it is what it is. You can't get away from it. And one of the big ones maybe this week too, or past week as well, is just the number of layoffs and Granted, for people listening out there, this is a little Silicon Valley tech focused, but I think it's coming more broadly everywhere now. Meta was the big one that led the way. They closed 6,000 open job recs. They laid off 8,000, and then they took 7,000 employees that didn't get closed out or laid off and basically traded them to a different team to replace the roles that they had to work on AI.
00:13:23
Travis Z
So there are a lot of shakeup in there, but that's not just them. Intuit did 3,000 employees. That's 17% of their workforce. Upwork had a smaller number, smaller company, 175 employees, but that's 24% of its workforce. you know You're cutting a quarter there on 600 people. LinkedIn, again, big name, 5%, 350 employees, but with a name like that, it definitely catches some headlines there.
00:13:46
Travis Z
So I know we've had friends impacted by that, people in our networks impacted by that, just based on where we've where we've been. And a lot of the companies, even though they're not getting big headlines because they're not doing big numbers, they're not doing a RIF notification, they're doing rolling RIFs is what what the the word is on the street internally.
00:14:05
Travis Z
Even some local companies too are just leveraging PIPs and performance reviews to try to manage numbers. I'm going to pause there. Are you guys seeing the same thing?
00:14:15
Travis Z
any personal interactions with that?
00:14:17
Brandon
Absolutely. i mean I mean, Wix laid off a little bit this week.
00:14:20
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, i would say outside of Silicon Valley, i know the me at Wix and and she's you know dealing with 20% of the workforce.
00:14:20
Travis Z
Oh, yeah.
00:14:21
Brandon
is
00:14:23
Travis Z
I didn't hear that one.
00:14:28
Jarad Backlund
It's crazy.
00:14:29
Brandon
Yeah, Groupon, ClickUp, there's another couple companies that have shared some roles and... I think the idea that started you know a couple months back when Jack from you know the Twitter founder, i think Block was the first one that like basically cut the company in half.
00:14:48
Brandon
I think he laid off
00:14:49
Travis Z
40% something.
00:14:50
Brandon
Yeah, 44,000 or so people and their stock price shot up and you see like the before and after. And I feel like a lot of executive teams are coming to Jesus essentially and saying, hey, we've got to trade people for infrastructure investment or really experiment with how to do things more efficiently in this like AI enabled world.
00:15:17
Brandon
And for better or for worse, like I think there's probably middle layers of fat at every company that's been around for a long time that could be trimmed up.
00:15:23
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:15:26
Brandon
But this seems like overreaching. Yeah.
00:15:29
Jarad Backlund
it's it's still, yeah, it just feels like an excuse, man.
00:15:31
Brandon
to ro
00:15:33
Jarad Backlund
Like, I don't know, man. Like I, I i live with AI every day, Brandon, probably more so, you know, Travis, you're, you're kind of out there using it to power your business and you're not, I'm not seeing this ability to cut my team by 40%.
00:15:48
Jarad Backlund
It's a hell of an excuse. Now we can argue we've worked at some of these places. Yeah. Like there's definitely some fat and there's some things you could trim, but, You know, 20% of your workforce, you over hired, maybe.
00:16:00
Jarad Backlund
Again, I think it's this, we're going to start shifting money towards tokens or data infrastructure though.
00:16:06
Brandon
Thank you.
00:16:07
Jarad Backlund
What was it? Uber came out this week and said, we spent all of our year money on Claude and like already, And oh, by the way, like, I don't know if I see an ROI, oh which which we should talk about, but I don't know, man, these layoffs bother me a ton.
00:16:20
Jarad Backlund
These companies grew too fast. They weren't disciplined. And now they're like, people are paying for it and it's heavily centralized. And in a few industries, I do think it will come to places like, you know, retail and P and G and Johnson Johnson, those kinds of industries. But Gosh, I just tell you, like it does feel more like excuses than, and like just this, I'm going to make the stock price go up, than they're actually seeing the time savings now. I just i can't buy. it
00:16:48
Brandon
And what's underneath that, it feels like to me, you touched on it in the Uber example, is like the token burn rate, right? You have people who literally have something like fire, right? It's a technology that can be harnessed well for for cooking or for doing something else. But right now they're burning down a lot of rooms in their houses because they haven't found a way to contain it. So I feel like there's a lot of spending going on in companies.
00:17:15
Brandon
Like Meta, there there's someone's, I think even like Amazon had started to put up leaderboards of like who's using the tech and who's getting into it the most to encourage this like culture and behavioral shift.
00:17:26
Brandon
But then when you look at the price tag at the end of the month or the end of the quarter, it's like, oh, this is untenable. We need to like reverse some of those.
00:17:33
Jarad Backlund
Oh, yeah. Well, and did you see that Amazon took that down?
00:17:36
Brandon
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:37
Jarad Backlund
Because I think they were like, I was just like, it's it's this funny, like reconciliation moment of like, is the new currency, you know, it's always been how many headcounts you have? How big is your team?
00:17:47
Jarad Backlund
I think it's going to be headcount and tokens. Like how much are you spending on both?
00:17:52
Brandon
And the efficiencies that you get out of it, right? Because there are intelligent, cost optimized ways to ask questions and to prompt AIs to get stuff out that you need for your business or for your use case.
00:18:05
Brandon
And we as a, I think, society are probably just in the first part of the first inning in order to try to figure out how to efficiently do that. And, yeah, it'll take some time. There's no, like we we used to say when I worked at Amazon, there's no compression algorithm for experience.
00:18:23
Brandon
So it's not like you can magically just give somebody.
00:18:26
Jarad Backlund
Man, that that's a little NBA nugget right there. That's like Deloitte charging me to a million dollars to give me that little nugget right there. That was good.
00:18:32
Brandon
we we we we need like a little sound.
00:18:34
Jarad Backlund
but the Oh, man. Where did that go? i used to have one, and then work it was... a I need to get the the horn. Okay, I'll bring a horn for next time.
00:18:43
Travis Z
The sound effects, all right?
00:18:43
Jarad Backlund
Yeah.
00:18:44
Travis Z
The one that reminds me of, Brian, that good choices come from experience, and a lot of times experience comes from bad choices. And so how do you how do you speed run that, or how do you brute force that? like You try to like learn as much as you can and not make the same mistakes as everyone else.
00:18:57
Travis Z
Train the
00:18:57
Jarad Backlund
do i make How do I make my 25 year old folks on my team an as old as I am and have as many bad experiences as I do? Is that what you just said?
00:19:06
Travis Z
is yeah train the train the model.
00:19:06
Jarad Backlund
good
00:19:07
Travis Z
train train the model
00:19:08
Jarad Backlund
Train them all. Train them all. Be a failure like me. And then you get it. No, you're spot on, though. I mean, it's it's one of those things where like you need judgment now.
00:19:14
Travis Z
Oh, that's right, yeah.
00:19:17
Jarad Backlund
like Again, ai will only give you what you ask for.
00:19:18
Brandon
Thank you.
00:19:21
Jarad Backlund
it doesn't It's not creative yet. and And it might get there. But you know it's why when it makes videos and TV shows and writes and all those things, it can only give you what it wants.
00:19:32
Jarad Backlund
It can't surprise you. And like, that is the, that is the genesis of like why we probably all have jobs is because we can bring the unexpected because of pattern recognition or
Human Judgment and AI in Creative Fields
00:19:44
Jarad Backlund
whatever.
00:19:44
Jarad Backlund
Do I think that also might get taken over by AA? Maybe, probably for sure. But I think that to me, at least as a differentiation moment is I need someone who knows what to ask to to prompt or, or to build.
00:19:58
Brandon
Yeah. To the folks who are you know, on the fence about whether I should go deep on something because I think AI will eventually like be smarter than me individually.
00:20:10
Brandon
That judgment piece that you talked about, I think is really important. Like somebody who knows a lot about a particular topic needs to be able to
00:20:14
Jarad Backlund
Thank
00:20:18
Brandon
analyze the outputs of these like brilliant models and pressure tested up against stuff that is like human intuition and experience from senior people or else we'll have a whole generation of people that are just early and in a whole generation of people that are very like senior and no way to kind of span that chasm.
00:20:39
Brandon
And we just have to trust a lot of the outputs of these models without applying the kind of judgment and the intuition that we've had to learn through experience and like through business school and through, you know, just life happening to us.
00:20:54
Brandon
So I'm hoping that we find like a mechanism to marry, you know, the more experienced folks to the, I talk a lot of college students, they're like struggling to find these opportunities post doing the exact right thing that they've been told from, you know, a young age, you know, get out of high school, go to a good college, keep your grades up, you know, do as good as you can.
00:21:05
Jarad Backlund
Oh, sure
00:21:16
Brandon
And they're like today, graduation season, where's my internship? Where's my job? Where's the opportunity that the American dream promised me? So it's it's quite a time.
00:21:27
Travis Z
I know something had shifted when I started to see parents doing promos on LinkedIn for their kids, trying to find opportunities for them.
00:21:27
Jarad Backlund
Yeah. sir
00:21:31
Jarad Backlund
Oh, for sure.
00:21:34
Travis Z
i I've never seen that before until this year.
00:21:36
Jarad Backlund
executives doing it. Like if you were an executive, you could just kind of hand your kid a job through your network.
00:21:37
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:21:41
Jarad Backlund
and And I know executives now whose kids are graduating and like they're struggling, like they're moving back home. And what's the latest stat? It's like 55% of people under 30 are living at home or back with their parents.
00:21:52
Jarad Backlund
Like and And you go, oh, that seems like a lot. But then like I go through my list of friends who've got kids who are grown and you're like, oh yeah, like there's always a good reason. and And sometimes this is a nice home, but they're back home right and and contributing to the family.
00:22:08
Jarad Backlund
but Brandon and I,
00:22:08
Travis Z
Here's the headline. I tracked it down. 56, back to the point of the S&P 500 doing layoffs here. 56% of these companies that did layoffs, AI-linked layoffs, supposedly, saw their stock price decline after their announcement. They've averaged 25% Nike cut 800 to accelerate automation. Their stock's down 35%. Salesforce laid off 4,000. Stock's down 32%. Fiverr cut 30% of its workforce.
00:22:34
Travis Z
Stock is down 54%. So I think there was a moment maybe in the past two years where you'd see a Wall Street
00:22:38
Jarad Backlund
Really?
00:22:42
Travis Z
blip or a pump afterwards because you'd see a personal line personnel line get cut and Wall Street like that. But so much more of this money is going into AI ai infrastructure and the ROI isn't clear yet.
00:22:53
Travis Z
Back to Brandon's point that that we're not sure if that's actually the right thing.
00:22:54
Jarad Backlund
Yeah.
00:22:58
Travis Z
You're cutting expenses, but you're investing in infrastructure and you're investing in things that we don't have a clear ROI path for yet because we're in the first inning yet.
00:23:06
Jarad Backlund
That's really interesting, right? that you know wall street hates uncertainty and so it's funny to think you would think you cut that so i guess if i'm thinking about why it would drop it's that they believe that what it's going to replace it is going to be way more expensive and way more volatile uh which is fascinating to me i think brand if i were to sum up what like if i had to pick a word i'd say it's discernment right i'm trying to bring discernment and i would say that in this world of tokenization and building i mean
00:23:38
Jarad Backlund
just really you know billions of megawatts and all the things they say they're going to need. Like I saw a stat, it was like the amounts that on the rail, welding the railroad was like 6% of GDP, but everything else has been like sub 3%, kind of like the computer revolution to build all the data centers they say they need.
00:23:58
Jarad Backlund
It's like 5% of GDP. And so it's funny like interesting if we'll ever actually spend that much, but I don't know, man, like all of this just needs some discernment. I need discernment to work with my quad code, which by the way is the freaking best and and I love it. But we also need discernment on, don't know, man, like what are these people going to do?
00:24:18
Jarad Backlund
Like do we a universal basis of income?
00:24:19
Brandon
Yeah.
00:24:20
Jarad Backlund
Like I'm worried, man.
AI's Impact on Job Market and Society
00:24:22
Brandon
Yeah, we have, you know, I've talked to a bunch of folks, again, graduating colleges, institutions that are maybe pivoting their degree programs into what they think the future skills need to look like. And it's interesting, like microcosms, like we have a SpaceX and like the Anthropic and OpenAI, like IPOs that are like on the horizon, probably, which will make maybe the market happy. Then you've got a larger like AI bubble that people feel is like inflating and it's got to pop at some point.
00:24:55
Brandon
And then this like longer term kind of outside of the viewpoint of the markets, what are we actually going to ask people to do from a work perspective, given that a lot of the robotics wave and like the the the ability to embody a lot of the AI that's in software only today is is coming right behind these IPOs. So Yeah, i I don't know.
00:25:20
Brandon
I think humans are good at organizing and hopefully convening what we actually want versus feeling that whatever is coming has to happen to us without our say or without our vote.
00:25:34
Brandon
So my hope is that we can have like conversation. democratic conversation and that the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, you know, they get that their democratic vote for what happens too, but that it's not a, if I have the most money or resources, you all have to be, you know, subverted to everything that I want to do.
00:25:56
Brandon
And nobody's got the power to push back and into to counterbalance some of that. So here's the hope.
00:26:02
Jarad Backlund
yeah i i wonder why oh i i wonder too it's like you're seeing like this really fast acceleration of productivity right i imagine when the personal computer hit the workplace and and part of this is like we haven't yet invented the jobs or the work and so like your productivity is high so you see this like down blip as people is there's know unemployment like frictional unemployment
00:26:03
Travis Z
And that's what, oh great, Jared, yeah.
00:26:27
Jarad Backlund
And there's this having to learn new skills or invent new jobs, but we don't even know where to point it yet. Right. So that'll be fascinating to me. you know, I think, what was it, uh, Benioff was saying, the CEO of Salesforce was talking about, Hey, where AI is really going to help is in, in medical, which I could super see that. Right. You think about like all the protein folding and all those things that like deep mind is doing and, and,
00:26:52
Jarad Backlund
I think that i hope, like we keep seeing it as like, oh, it'll always be ahead. We'll always have extra productivity and maybe we've got to come up with universal basic income, but I wonder if we'll use it to accelerate and maybe we do go back to space exploration or advanced medical pieces or go down to a four day work week or something like that. And so maybe maybe it just, it' it's a moment where the world's catching up and trying to figure out what to do with all this extra productivity.
00:27:23
Travis Z
We were in a kind of a a store few months ago. wife was picking something up. I was kind of keeping my kids busy. And this store was a converted early 1900s building.
00:27:36
Travis Z
So they had some of the classic nineteen hundreds stuff, brick. all that stuff. But in the back, they had the classic telephone that had the old-timey earpiece that you hold up to your ear.
00:27:46
Travis Z
It's got a crank on the side. And so was like, my kids had no idea what this thing was. So I was explaining it to them. And they're like, and you could talk to anyone? I was like, well, not really. You could only talk to people who were hardwired, like connected.
00:27:58
Travis Z
And you also had to have...
00:27:59
Jarad Backlund
President, is that you? Santa?
00:28:02
Travis Z
Exactly. and And because there was a party line, right, I guess. And this is obviously way before my time, too, but i just know about this from from what I've read. But there were rooms of people who acted as human routers, mapping the physical connections. You'd have to talk to an operator. They'd understand who you wanted to talk to, and they'd have to make a physical connection on a switchboard acting as a human router. And we don't have that anymore. And those jobs went away when technology caught up for right? Right. And suddenly they had to reskill and do something else. and And I guess the question is, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
00:28:35
Travis Z
Would we ever want to go back to a place, for example, where we had human routers doing manual connections? and I think the answer is no. But there's maybe one of the questions is, like can we reskill people fast enough? Because the rate of change that's putting people out of work is faster than ever. At least you know as that that transitioned, it was over months, quarters, years. Here it feels like it's happening. It's something new every week.
00:28:59
Jarad Backlund
I do you think we should go back to having a human elevator operators. So if someone brought up family matters, remember the mom's job was to operate the elevator in a two story building. And so again, I would love to go I would be very good elevator operators.
00:29:12
Travis Z
Yeah. Yeah. There's a human touch there.
00:29:15
Brandon
i'm I'm with that. I think, you know, my wife's a teacher. you know, there's certain things that you love the human touch of and you just would hate to see it go away.
00:29:26
Brandon
And, you know, I hope that people... even if we can't optimize the execution of it, you also can't quantify kind of the way that it makes you feel to like have the barista know your name and not have to tell them your order because they know exactly what you want. Cause you go there every day or My sister just had so shoulder surgery and a lot of what she was telling me after she got out of the surgery in terms of just how cared for and how slowly they went through all of her, you know, outgoing procedures and stuff like that.
00:30:03
Brandon
Like that care is like very hard, I think, to encapsulate into an AI model and
00:30:06
Jarad Backlund
Hmm.
00:30:12
Brandon
Yeah, i i feel like we like capital and capitalism values things obviously very different than what we think needs to happen in the longer term. And a big question that I've been asking people, are we like post capitalism? Are we like post college? Are we post like a lot of these big institutions? Have they outlived their usefulness? Should we take elements of them, but not lean as heavily and rely as heavily on them?
00:30:40
Brandon
moving forward kind of into this AI enabled age we're walking into. And I think the the jury's still out on some of those questions, but that'd be an interesting thing.
00:30:52
Brandon
I'm even in my parenting, like asking myself, does my kid need to go to traditional high school? Do we need to go and do a lot of these things that were prescribed as like Silicon Valley or just post?
00:30:58
Jarad Backlund
sure
00:31:04
Travis Z
Path to success.
00:31:04
Brandon
Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:05
Jarad Backlund
yeah or like to your point like you teach at a nice college those folks worked really hard did really well in high school i question like well how hard do you push your kid to get your good a sat t score or extracurricular activities if like because it's so competitive to get into college these days will that competitiveness drop or you know, I love the idea my friend, uh, one of my friends last night is a physical therapist and she is maybe not always as productive as, as maybe they would want her to be because she believes in that human touch and she spends time with her patients and she gets to know them and their families. And I don't know, maybe the positive side of this is, you know, gosh, I feel so busy and so overwhelmed. Maybe that starts to go away and maybe I can like take an extra minute and like,
00:31:53
Jarad Backlund
have a lunch not at my desk while I'm in the you know jumping between meetings or like having a meeting while eating my lunch. like Maybe that's what it'll enable is a little more of that introducing care and moments of kind of pause and purpose-driven choices throughout the day.
00:32:13
Brandon
I forgot to bring this up this week.
00:32:13
Travis Z
Ooh.
00:32:14
Brandon
One of the cooler things that I got to do was a disability technology hackathon. There's this set of schools for special education, like low vision and a blind school, a school for hard of hearing and the deaf.
00:32:20
Jarad Backlund
Cool.
00:32:29
Brandon
I got to kick off a two day build-a-thon essentially for special education teachers. And they built some of the coolest tools to essentially automate a lot of the administrative overhead and reporting that they had to do.
00:32:45
Brandon
And then to build tooling on Replit that allows somebody to really empathize what with somebody who has like low vision, for example.
00:32:46
Jarad Backlund
Wow.
00:32:57
Brandon
So I had one app where there's a sliding scale of a picture gets generated. It's all this stuff going on in it. And you get to see if you slide the slider up, like there's kind of blackness that comes, uh, in the corners and they can, you, you get to like, see that, oh, this person that I'm working with can only focus on this 25% of this field of view.
00:33:10
Jarad Backlund
wow
00:33:19
Brandon
And that's what it feels like to walk around in their shoes. Or, uh, there was this tactile kind of braille generator so that you could actually generate worksheets for reading or for math or for different concepts and to have kind of the empathy being built while I'm teaching them to build, like they're learning to build, but I'm also building and I'm learning while I'm building.
00:33:42
Brandon
It's a really crazy learn learn to build, build to learn moment for me.
00:33:44
Jarad Backlund
That's awesome.
00:33:47
Brandon
But i look at AI providing the ability for us to serve those communities that don't necessarily get thought of when we make new technology better.
00:34:00
Brandon
We can spend more time there and maybe make those kinds of lives a lot richer than they have been in previous generations. So forgot to bring that Pretty cool one.
00:34:09
Travis Z
all right.
00:34:23
Travis Z
So hot take here, like that that was kind of the promise as electricity made it into homes.
00:34:24
Jarad Backlund
Hmm.
00:34:39
Travis Z
And as all the technology innovations happened nineteen hundreds and on, there's a bunch of studies out there that say theoretically, we should have been able to stop working so hard, and instead of we just filled it with more work.
Technology, Work-Life Balance, and Income Inequality
00:34:51
Travis Z
And so I do worry that we're just gonna repeat history here, we because I think it's the right thing to do, is like pour it into more time with your family, like you're saying, Jared. Brandon, pour it into more time to make things more accessible for people who need that that additional capability.
00:35:06
Travis Z
And I do worry that the incentives are perverse enough that we're just like, yeah, but now the expectation is that I can pump out three times more code, four times more code. Now the expectation is I can manage 15 people instead of eight.
00:35:18
Travis Z
Now the expectation is I manage 15 people and pump out 4,000 or 4x more code because the expectations are just higher now that because they know it doesn't take as much time to do all the things. So now I do more things, but all in the name of of serving whatever company I happen to work for. rather than creating more time to to have more time with family or to pour it into good causes.
00:35:40
Brandon
Yeah.
00:35:40
Jarad Backlund
I think like the macro trends though would say like my grandfather worked every Saturday. He worked six days a week. And then by the time my dad worked, he didn't. He was down to five. We're probably down to about four and a half. So in general, I do think we're working less. Let's take out where we live in in Silicon Valley for Brandon and i that's probably a bit of an anomaly. But I think what you bring up is an interesting point, which, you know, Brandon, you talked about is this the end of post-capitalism or post-school, but it could go that way.
00:36:10
Jarad Backlund
Or it could go the way it's been going, which Travis, I think what happened is it became the haves and have nots. And those haves you know easy you could have three people do this job or you could have one of them do this job, but maybe those three people get paid less, right? Maybe they get paid 60% each you know of what that salary would have been, or you take one and you make them do it all, but you pay them a ton.
00:36:35
Jarad Backlund
And then you have the people at the bottom who are like, you know serving them coffee for minimum wage.
00:36:38
Travis Z
I'm stuck.
00:36:40
Jarad Backlund
And so I wonder, like that's that to me is what's happened.
00:36:40
Brandon
Thank
00:36:40
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:36:43
Jarad Backlund
It's like, they're the people who, who do that, right? It's that expectation piece, but then you have this whole other population left at the bottom. And so you have this huge disparity in income and and all of those pieces. So that is to me, the scarier path versus if we could go the Brandon path and say, well,
00:37:00
Jarad Backlund
Hey, I'm going to, the three of us are actually going to take the same job that we could probably make one person do. And the three of us will get paid the same, maybe in total as that person would have done. i don't know, man. Like maybe it's that capitalism in us that says, no, I have to beat these other two and I'm going to get all the rewards.
00:37:17
Jarad Backlund
I don't know.
00:37:18
Travis Z
I had to track it down because I wasn't sure who said it, but it was Keynes, John Maynard Keynes, apparently. So 1930, he predicted by 2030, which is sneaking up on us pretty soon here, that people would only work, wouldn't need to work and or at most would need to work 15 hours a week.
00:37:34
Travis Z
And the the thought is why why this never happened was because enough was never enough.
00:37:34
Jarad Backlund
Oh, interesting. Yeah,
00:37:39
Travis Z
Enough was never enough.
00:37:39
Jarad Backlund
yeah it got better.
00:37:40
Travis Z
what Whatever lens, I'm going to apply to it.
00:37:40
Jarad Backlund
It did not get to 15 hours a week for sure. but And again, like for some people it did, right? But maybe not in a good way, right? They work in 15 hours a week.
00:37:47
Travis Z
I think for the people who, like you're top of the top, like you're saying, yeah. Yeah.
00:37:52
Brandon
I think that the mechanism of moving the goals up, I mean, once the capitalists figure out like how to set goals appropriately in this new paradigm, then would expect, right, if you used to need one person in order to get to $10 million dollars of output and you can now reliably you know say that that same person can get you $50 million, then the goals themselves will just move up
00:37:52
Jarad Backlund
Hmm.
00:37:52
Travis Z
So.
00:38:17
Jarad Backlund
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:21
Brandon
to the new kind of tranche or the new tier and that they will put as much kind of money back in their pockets as possible versus kind of the distribution like across to to multiple people who might be in that.
00:38:36
Brandon
ek So it'll it'll be somewhere in the middle, but I think the capitalists are gonna continue to capitalist as we move forward into the future.
00:38:45
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, I think it's like, to your point, it's, this is, I think, what bothers me about these layoffs is they're jumping the gun, right? Like AI is just not there yet, but they're taking that person doing 10 and they're saying, you're going to do 50 tomorrow.
00:38:58
Jarad Backlund
Now the tools aren't ready. Like it's not really 5X more, but maybe it's 3X more or 2X more, but you're going to give it to us in blood, sweat and tears. And and that's, that's what I think bothers me about this is they are going that haves and haves nots to people who get to keep their job, like, maybe they get, you know, the raise this year, the stock price goes up and they make more compensation, but it's that, Oh, it's that like forced hand of, well, let's just push them. Let's see how far we can push them until they, until, until they don't deliver. And then maybe I'll let them hire a person back. Like that, that's what I think bothers me about all this.
00:39:33
Travis Z
And that was the Musk playbook, right? I mean, that's what he said. We're going into, he call Like super hard mode? They had a term for it.
00:39:39
Jarad Backlund
Oh no. What was that? It's a, no, it's like a,
00:39:41
Brandon
ma
00:39:42
Travis Z
What was it?
00:39:43
Jarad Backlund
Well, there's founder mode and then there is, oh yeah, what was his word? i don't know.
00:39:49
Travis Z
know.
00:39:49
Jarad Backlund
I mean.
00:39:50
Travis Z
and But what he did, sorry, Brandon, do you remember but the term?
00:39:53
Brandon
i I just know founder mode, so I don't know the...
00:39:55
Travis Z
Founder mode. Okay, founder mode. Okay. Yeah, so so he, i mean, he, I think, led the way like two years ago in in making drastic cuts and basically cutting to the bone. And then I will hire back or I'll i'll add back whatever breaks, but I want to see where it where it really hurts. and And I get the logic.
00:40:10
Travis Z
But also, I think, and Jared, to be interested in like, as a resident finance expert here too, do you think a lot of the layoffs that followed through Silicon Valley and a lot of these larger companies was just because if we don't,
00:40:15
Jarad Backlund
Mm-hmm.
00:40:21
Travis Z
Wall Street will punish us because we're not applying the same type of pressure to our workforce to find out where the inefficiencies are. And so I wonder how much of it was like legitimately founded, as opposed to how much was just we've got to do it too, because everyone else is now doing it.
00:40:34
Brandon
Thank you.
00:40:37
Travis Z
Like Elon just changed the game.
00:40:38
Jarad Backlund
Oh, sure. You offer free free basket of chips so everyone has do it. You know, I guess what I would say is Wall Street rewards growth, revenue, top line growth at at least still 3X. It used to be 4X. They do efficiency. So to me, it's a little hand wavy.
00:40:54
Jarad Backlund
Like to me, it's a little like either one or two things is happening. Either you're hiding the fact that you're you're basically telling me you're not going to grow as much.
00:41:01
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:41:02
Jarad Backlund
Or two, like maybe you were a little fat, you overhired. Or three, like and this is probably why the stocks dropped, you're telling me that you're going to have to spend way more than I ever would guessed on tokens and data centers and all this technology, all these Neo clouds, you're going to have to prop them all up, all these,
00:41:22
Jarad Backlund
Gosh, Micron. Do you guys remember Micron? It was never like the best company. And now they're like a trillion dollars. I was super angry.
00:41:28
Brandon
Thank
00:41:28
Jarad Backlund
I'll be honest. I i started so in semiconductors. I was super mad. I was just like, why are they doing that? But yeah, I think it's, again, Wall Street wants top line growth.
00:41:36
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:41:39
Jarad Backlund
They want predictability. And so again, maybe some of them are going, hey, are you telling me you're done growing? right at the pace that you've been growing and therefore your stock's not worth it. So you got to kind of hand wave over here and cut some costs. I can't quite put my finger on it. And I think that's again, why you might see these cuts and the drop of you're either signaling to me that your revenue is going to stop growing. So you didn't need to stop investing or that you got to invest so much in this other stuff that you're so afraid that I'm going to punish you for dropping your margins over time. So it's, none of it is good.
00:42:11
Jarad Backlund
yeah
00:42:12
Brandon
interesting thing i say one One interesting thing is the psychology of the people that are still on the boat after the cuts is like interesting thing I think about because at some point,
00:42:13
Travis Z
Hot take from, oh, go ahead, Brandon. Go ahead, please.
00:42:24
Jarad Backlund
but Or you imagine you're a new employee. Cause what's not, here's, here's the thing that like probably isn't getting picked up in the news is it's not that they're stopped hiring. And in fact, like they've posted, you know, take a side of meta. They've actually posted almost as many racks to hire back, but they're different jobs.
00:42:40
Jarad Backlund
Right. They're like AI engineer or the analyst that has AI experience. Like they're letting go of people, but they're not stopping to add them back. They're just replacing them very quickly. So that that's like the hidden little thing here where it's not like those people are gone forever. They're just, they're, they're forcing that shift.
00:42:57
Brandon
In the culture, right after something like that happens, I think the people who are there either feel like this is good enough for me to try to like fill the void, or they at some point, they just feel like I need to keep my head down, but I know that eventually like something like this is coming for me, maybe in the next wave. It's a pretty interesting like thought experiment to figure out how you how motivated the people who are left feel to continue down the path or whether they just feel it's inevitable. like the, the, the, the building of the culture and the communications, the way that a lot of these people find out, uh, there's stuff all over the internet about, Oh, you know, it was very impersonal or this happened at such a weird time, or I was on maternity leave or paternity leave. So,
00:43:50
Brandon
The care that we talked about previously a couple minutes ago as applied to some of these decisions, I think could definitely turn up the turn up the dial on trying to do it a little bit better.
00:44:02
Brandon
I don't know if there is a a way to make people feel better.
00:44:04
Jarad Backlund
I mean, there is a way. did you guys Did you guys take that, what was it, transformations, that PE class in MBA? you Yeah, okay.
00:44:11
Travis Z
i didn't
00:44:12
Jarad Backlund
It was really intense. you should like You should be glad you didn't take it, but it was really informative. But we actually spent like a full class. One of the things was to lay off a bunch of people. And we actually spent a full class debating how to do it the most humane way possible.
00:44:26
Jarad Backlund
Here you are training like, you know, potential leaders or or current leaders, how to do that thoughtfully, like it absolutely can and should be done. There are a million ways to do this. And man, I read these notes. And I'm like, you can read they're trying to say it, but man, they're just they're just not doing it right. Like, I don't know, it's, it's a little, it's a little sad to watch.
00:44:45
Travis Z
think all of us have done it I all of us have had background and in big tech and have done some stints in different places.
00:44:50
Brandon
Thank you.
00:44:51
Travis Z
Just Google is maybe one example of that. Having gone through multiple rounds of layoffs at Google, now it's different. But maybe the example i can give where I was most impressed was I was at Google Fiber.
00:45:02
Travis Z
We got caught in a surprise layoff after the CFO changed and had different perspectives about how much money to put into fiber optic sort infrastructure and returns.
00:45:12
Travis Z
And they decided to do a layoff. They laid off 500 people. Nobody saw it coming because at that point in 2017, maybe there weren't a lot of layoffs and Google hadn't done layoffs before at that point that they'd done, they'd done hiring freezes during the economic slowdown, but never a layoff like this.
00:45:29
Travis Z
And so caught everybody by surprise, but 500 people got told, pulled into a room and here was the message. We're sorry. We're doing layoffs. Your job as of this morning doesn't exist.
00:45:40
Travis Z
But you have a new job here and your new job is to find another job at Google and all of your compensation is secure. You're still getting paid. Your equity is still investing. Your badge will still work seven days a week. Come in, eat three meals a day if you want to. And you've got three months, but we know that you're good for Google. but You've passed the hiring bar. You've gotten in and you're none of this is personal. It's not because of your performance.
00:46:03
Travis Z
And because you're great for this company and have been doing so well, we want you to find another seat on the bus. And we're giving you three months. You can go find another job right now. You can go take two months of vacation and come back and find a job afterwards. We don't care. it's totally up to you. But we want you to stay here.
00:46:19
Travis Z
was the message. And some people did that. My friend Brad went out and hammered on finding a job right away. He landed in a different team. One my other friends went out and she's like, screw this, I'm single, I'm in my 20s, I'm going to Bali for two months. And she did. And then she came back and found a job afterwards and she's still at Google too.
00:46:34
Travis Z
And even the people who couldn't after the end of that, when they got to three months, hadn't found another seat on the bus, they came back and said, we still think you're great. Here's another three months, like go figure it out. And almost all of them are still at Google today.
00:46:46
Travis Z
So the amount of loyalty that that got them afterwards was amazing.
00:46:48
Brandon
I kind of love
00:46:51
Travis Z
Now Google has since moved on and isn't doing layoffs like that anymore because of the Silicon Valley trends, I think. But that is one way where I think if you truly believe these people are great and you still have the growth because you've got a great company, and you've got open seats,
00:47:03
Travis Z
They wanted to invest in finding them different seats on the bus and giving them time to reskill or or to make that transition. I was impressed.
00:47:09
Jarad Backlund
So hot take, hot take, don't be a jerk.
00:47:10
Brandon
yeah i got look
00:47:14
Travis Z
All right.
00:47:17
Brandon
Oh, there it is.
00:47:17
Jarad Backlund
Look what I found.
00:47:18
Travis Z
and all you found right
00:47:18
Jarad Backlund
Look what I found. Oh my God.
00:47:21
Brandon
And I like love those three meals a day from Google. I now that I've joined startup life, we've got three meals a day, like at the kind like all this free stuff in the fridges and like snacks. So, man, do I love it. But I'm 10 pounds up, guys.
00:47:37
Brandon
I need some.
00:47:40
Travis Z
The Fang 15.
00:47:41
Jarad Backlund
I mean, that I'm sure AI can solve that for you, Brandon.
00:47:41
Brandon
Yeah.
00:47:44
Jarad Backlund
i think I think that's a good transition from headlines and hot takes. Let's go to our outro segment around the table.
Family Rituals and Open Communication
00:47:53
Jarad Backlund
We all have those rituals where we pause, reflect and share. it could be over a cup of coffee with a friend, quiet moment with your journal or around the table with your family. So this week in Around the Table, Travis is going to share one of the small practices that helps him slow down and notice what it matters.
00:48:08
Travis Z
Yeah, so this is something i picked it up from someone else. I take no credit for this, but we've tried to do it on a regular basis with our kids and our family just around the dinner table, which is what's your high high?
00:48:21
Travis Z
What's your low low? And my kids have have turned the random one into what's your wild water buffalo because it rhymes nicely. So what what is a high of the day, what's a low of the day, and what's something crazy that happened? And that's something that we've started maybe a couple years ago, tried it out, and it stuck. And so we still use it. I mean, we even use it when friends come over and we kind of catch you know dinner parties and catch people talking about it. But it opens up the discussion too. and And part of the reason is,
00:48:47
Travis Z
I want to make sure like as our kids get older, like we just have open dialogue. Like we want, we love the ritual of a family dinner. We try to protect that at all costs. I scheduled meetings around it when I was in big tech. Like I've just got a sacred time between five 30 and eight where I'm, I'm making dinner. I'm having dinner with my kids. I'm helping my wife.
00:49:04
Travis Z
Sometimes I'm i'm putting the kids to bed too, because I love that ritual as well. But whatever is needed for the family. And as other people have come over to, we've realized it's not just for our kids. It's a great way to try to do a conversation story and just find out like what's going in their life. What's really amazing this day, this week, this month that we can celebrate with them. What's a low low, like what what sorrow can you jump into and and empathetically walk with them or help them out with potentially too. And sometimes you never know what you're going to get from your kids when you ask like, what's a crazy thing that happened today? So that's been our version of, but I've heard other versions too.
00:49:41
Jarad Backlund
you want to You want to give us an example, Travis?
00:49:41
Brandon
No, we've
00:49:43
Jarad Backlund
like Why don't you kick us off and we'll kind of go around the table here.
00:49:43
Travis Z
Sure. Sure. Yeah. So if we want run with this tradition for this episode, High high for me, man, just getting my kids out of school and watching them like transition into summer has been so good. We have been trying to do it everything outside. We actually have like, they're, they're running in the woods, they're jumping in the lake, they're doing everything we can. We've got a little poison ivy in the family right now. Like they got that we've gotten into something somewhere and you know what, we're just kind of that a blessing because we're like, you're just running around everywhere. And that's a sign that you're getting into something
00:50:16
Travis Z
and we got the the lotions out now trying to like manage it, but it's it's good. Low, low. I think my heart just goes out to the people that have been rocked by by the layoffs here too. like that That is something that I do a little bit of coaching on the side as well. And and as I've talked to people, like that really messes with people's self-confidence and self-worth.
00:50:36
Travis Z
even Even if they had in their head, no, it's not personal. In their heart, it's still hard to separate that logic from the feelings and the emotions. So it's a low, low, but in the sense that like I can also...
00:50:47
Travis Z
And I encourage everybody who's got a friend going through that type of thing, like be there with them and help them through that. Wild water buffalo. i don't know if I've got any wild water buffalos that have come up.
00:50:59
Travis Z
recently Oh, well, last night we were out on the lake and we saw an eagle swoop down, grab a fish and like take it over the shore and just start to like launch on a thing. So it's kind of cool to just watch nature take its its course and and see an eagle do its thing and then have some lunch on the beach. So was kind of cool.
00:51:19
Jarad Backlund
That was very cool. I saw that on TV. it just It's just as good.
00:51:27
Brandon
National Geographic.
00:51:29
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, that's right, man. Yeah, same thing. Just just good. My TV's big, so it's good.
00:51:34
Brandon
I guess I'll take a stab at the high high for me. I mentioned like the disability tech, that experience, like getting to work with that demographic of people.
00:51:40
Jarad Backlund
Hmm.
00:51:44
Brandon
And just generally speaking with my job, Replit, I get to give away a lot of capacity and free credits to people. So much so that I bought an orange and white Santa Claus hat off of Amazon this past week, just because Whenever I get ready to give it away, I'm gonna probably turn it into a thing.
00:51:57
Jarad Backlund
That's cool.
00:52:01
Travis Z
Awesome.
00:52:02
Brandon
So that's that's my high high.
00:52:02
Jarad Backlund
That's very cool.
00:52:03
Brandon
I feel like giving people self-confidence and like agency to like build better for themselves is a really fun part of my job. I'd say the low low that I mentioned before is just the five hours of sleep. I gotta figure out how to get a little bit of rest over these next couple of weeks so I don't like totally crash and burn.
00:52:25
Brandon
And then Wild Water Buffalo would maybe be the NBA playoffs. Like I'm really watching watching Wemby go at Oklahoma City and it's like currently a 3-3 series so we're going to like a game seven I think this weekend which is amazing for me I think the blowouts and kind of the back and forth of of the NBA because I used to think that I would be able to make it to the NBA until I stopped growing I'm five a and
00:52:57
Jarad Backlund
i was I was like, i which which league is this? I met you.
00:53:01
Brandon
Every kid chicago every kid in Chicago, if you grew up in in the 90s, you'd watch me Jordan, and you definitely were going far.
00:53:01
Jarad Backlund
You're not.
00:53:05
Jarad Backlund
Of course, man. You were in the heyday, man. Back in the the bowls and cheese.
00:53:11
Brandon
But, yeah, I enjoyed it.
00:53:13
Travis Z
Muggsy Bogues, right? Wasn't Muggsy Bogues five something? was He's the famous one who's under six.
00:53:17
Brandon
He was like 5'3", I think. Spud Webb was like 5'6".
00:53:19
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, but he could dunk.
00:53:20
Brandon
Spud Webb can go.
00:53:22
Jarad Backlund
He could. Spudweb won the dunk contest.
00:53:23
Travis Z
He got the ups.
00:53:25
Jarad Backlund
Brandy, can you dunk?
00:53:26
Brandon
I can touch the net still.
00:53:29
Jarad Backlund
That's not anywhere near dunking. and By the way, that's still impressive.
00:53:33
Brandon
Yeah.
00:53:34
Jarad Backlund
I can get a ladder and maybe fall off and touch the net. So.
00:53:39
Brandon
Yeah. So yeah, the water Buffalo, whoever wins, OKC or is the Spurs, thank you for just a great series and taking it to seven because on the other side, I think the Knicks swept the Cavs pretty, pretty handily.
00:53:50
Jarad Backlund
good, yeah.
00:53:50
Brandon
So that was a little bit more boring to watch, but.
00:53:54
Jarad Backlund
Nick's in the final.
00:53:54
Travis Z
Brandon, can you make a prediction? Like who's going to, who's going to pull this out and where should I put money on the various betting platforms?
00:53:57
Jarad Backlund
Oh yeah.
00:53:58
Brandon
Yeah.
00:53:59
Jarad Backlund
How can I make some cash off of your knowledge?
00:54:02
Brandon
Yeah, do your own research. But for Kalshi and for Polymarket, what what you have to do, I say OKC just because they're at home.
00:54:05
Jarad Backlund
I am, I'm asking you.
00:54:11
Brandon
The crowd, the experience and all of that behind them, i think that they'll edge it out.
00:54:12
Jarad Backlund
okay
00:54:18
Brandon
But Wimby is quite the force to be reckoned with. I think you can see that he's going to be the face in the future of the league here.
00:54:26
Jarad Backlund
Plus if they win, they get to leave Oklahoma City and go to New York. And if you've ever been to Oklahoma City, all you want to do is leave. My high highs and low lows.
00:54:36
Travis Z
Sorry, hot takes was 10 minutes ago.
00:54:37
Jarad Backlund
Oh, I'm sorry.
00:54:39
Travis Z
You're not allowed any more hot takes.
00:54:40
Jarad Backlund
I'm sorry. Wait, wait. But the DJ air horn.
00:54:46
Jarad Backlund
Oklahoma City. My high highs. So i I would say... you know, my, you know, the 12 year old just graduated from sixth grade, watching them just grow up and like become their own people and become like little young men. And just like, again, like we spent so much time just be decent people, treat people well, be kind.
00:55:11
Jarad Backlund
it's fun to watch that play out, right? Like they're getting to that point where they're stopping listening, but they're activating all the stuff that we've put into them and and hopefully taught them and modeled and did the best we could. But I saw some of those moments this week, you know, having my oldest at work and just watching him. i i actually went out to a, like a working lunch with somebody and he came with me and it was just fascinating to like, you sit around the table with a couple adults and he's just like,
00:55:39
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, like WorkU talks very different. i don't understand what you're saying, but you know, it was just fun to like have him participate. And I was like yeah, that's probably true. Yeah, because he would sit there in the meetings in the background while somebody be on Zoom or something.
00:55:47
Brandon
Thank you.
00:55:51
Jarad Backlund
And he's in that chair in my office.
00:55:52
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:55:53
Jarad Backlund
Low lows. Again, i'll I'll plus one on the on the way off. I'd say the other one, honestly, top of mind is my dad lives in me. i have an ADU in the back. And my mom passed away a little over a year ago, was in that ADU before.
00:56:07
Jarad Backlund
just getting older, man. Like he's in his mid seventies and yeah just tough. Like you just realize, okay, like time is short and then you realize, oh my gosh, like I got 30 some years till I get there.
00:56:20
Jarad Backlund
That that's going to go pretty fast. and And so just as me thinking about those things and, and grateful that we have the time together, the resources to have him live with us, all those things, he's still able to drive and helps out with the kids.
00:56:23
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:56:35
Jarad Backlund
and spends time with them. And that's always hilarious to watch them gaslight him. That's my favorite activity to do just to watch them pick on him and just the best thing ever. But yeah, that's realizing, you know, time is short, getting older and and our aging parents that are maybe not always in perfect health. My water buffalo. Have you ever ordered anything off Tmue?
00:56:59
Jarad Backlund
Oh my gosh. It's like, it's like going to casino and you're just like 50, 50, you're going to win something. And it's terrible. Like it's just the worst quality ever.
00:57:11
Jarad Backlund
But then half the time it's great. And it's like a dollar or like five bucks. And like, they, they make all their money off shipping from what I can tell. I can't really figure it out how they make money, but I got like,
00:57:22
Jarad Backlund
And you have to order like a ton of stuff to be able to like not have shipping be a thousand dollars. And so I ordered like six or seven things. And again, half of them are the coolest thing ever.
00:57:33
Jarad Backlund
And it was like 30 bucks for six things. And the other half are terrible. Like they're falling apart immediately. Like they're, you know, it says, Hey, here's this giant thing. And it's the size of a thimble.
00:57:44
Jarad Backlund
You know, it's just like, here's your new t-shirt. You're like, no, like, no, like it's half a shirt. It's like, Oh, it's just the front. Uh, But then like you get a hat like this. Like that Will Ferrell sketch on Saturday Night Live.
00:57:55
Travis Z
It's just a front.
00:57:58
Jarad Backlund
Do you guys watch Saturday Night Live? Will Ferrell with the half-day outfit? I think he got off Teemu. And so that's my water buffalo. Go buy something off of Teemu. Go play it with their app. It's like crushing candy.
00:58:08
Jarad Backlund
like It is very entertaining. So so I think that'll that'll leave there, please.
00:58:13
Travis Z
Side note, you should, maybe we can do this. Can we figure out like how to screencast your Teemu account and we'll watch you order stuff and then we'll do a follow-up episode where you unbox all of these things and then we rate them like one to 10 times.
00:58:24
Jarad Backlund
Oh, that's not a bad idea.
00:58:24
Brandon
Getting so new VC right now. This is like, I can see it.
00:58:27
Jarad Backlund
Okay.
00:58:28
Brandon
I can see it now.
00:58:30
Jarad Backlund
You remember that kid, Ryan? I'm actually that kid, Ryan. I just grew up really fast. He's done box, all that stuff. And
00:58:35
Brandon
richer than all of us. oh my gosh.
00:58:37
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, and sadder than all of us. don't that's a whole other conversation, how to how to exploit your choice. I worked at a social media company. have lots of thoughts. I think that's a good place to wrap this up for the weeks. So folks, catch us over the next 10 weeks for the season. and Travis and Brandon, where can they find you online?
00:58:57
Brandon
Easy to find. LinkedIn for me, Twitter as well, if you kind of search harder at Instagram. So let's take the conversation there. Travis, how about you?
00:59:07
Travis Z
Oh man, so I live in a bunker in northern Minnesota, so I am am intentionally hard to find. So I'm not on the social medias. I'm not on Snapchat. I'm not on Instagram. I'm not on Facebook. I don't know what TikTok is, but you can still find me on LinkedIn, TLZimbelman.
00:59:22
Jarad Backlund
And you can find me on LinkedIn. I also have social medias I never log into. And I'm probably mostly on LinkedIn. We'll drop some links in the notes. And guys, good to see you all.
00:59:35
Jarad Backlund
I will talk to you guys next week.
00:59:35
Travis Z
You guys do?
00:59:37
Brandon
All right. See you guys.
00:59:38
Travis Z
Peace.