Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 You know, what's wild about talking is, I actually read this study that the density of information per second is basically the same across all languages. And so certain languages developed with

0:39 more words for a bit of information. And so you talk real, real fast like that and all, but you still get the same amount of information across and that kind of fascinating, it's really hard to

0:52 believe. It is hard to believe. At the same time, the language, you know, when your brain processes quickly, you speak quickly. And so at the same time, I'm constantly going. And I also blame

1:03 the fact that I'm the youngest of three and I couldn't get a word in. So the moment I had the stage, it was like, everything came out really fast because I only had that 10 seconds of time to speak.

1:12 I'm the oldest of four boys. And so yeah, now I remember that. I didn't let the young one speak either So I totally get it. Yeah,

1:21 the younger brother, if you ever shave his head, he's got nicks all on it. Getting thumped on the head, yeah, exactly. You were that brother. Yeah, well, keep them in line, I guess. So I

1:32 have two, like, huge disappointments in my life. One, I should have been one of those 27-year-old GMs in baseball that use the computer, 'cause I had a computer, I like baseball, I knew all the

1:44 stats. And number two, me and my three brothers should have learned to record everything we did, 'cause we could have been Jackass. I could have been Johnny Knoxville. You would have done it

1:53 first. You only got two regrets, so you're doing pretty well. Two, I'm gonna talk about nine people, I don't know. The one thing will reveal. Okay, so this is my side of the story, what's

2:05 your side of the story? Bill Perkins, dude, calls me up and says, I got a guy that wants to come on a podcast, you wanna have 'em on And I said, Sure. And that's what I know. And you all two

2:19 showed up. Yeah, I thought we made that clear. I apologize if we did not. Am I a surprise? Was I not? I guess I'm not the guy. You're the guy. I'm the surprise. And it's all good. The being

2:31 a degenerate alcohol at age 56. I don't remember a lot. So it may have been my bad. Yeah, sure. I can tell you who are you. I'll tell you a little bit of my story. And then while we're here,

2:40 Alex will probably handle that part a lot better. But yeah, I'm more cowards. Tom, a bat who works for Bill. It's a good friend of mine And we work together at Bill's company that he started.

2:50 And I helped him start called SkyFi. So it's a satellite imaging platform where anybody can buy it. Basically, a satellite image on your phone, among other things. But my story I started out as

3:01 an energy trader for about 20 years, natural gas, mostly in New York and Houston. And in 20 years of trading, natural gas is a lot for me. It was plenty. And then some guys did it 30, 40 years.

3:11 But 20 was plenty for me. And then went between being retired in a serial entrepreneur, so. started a restaurant, then didn't do anything. Which restaurant? The passing provisions. Oh, yeah.

3:23 Yeah, I had two partners there who were just the best chefs in town. Really, they're just fantastic. Yeah, just passing provisions, right? And now they're both still doing some cool stuff now

3:31 too. So that was a, that was a fun ride. Now did you make money on that? I've lost money on all my restaurants. I always got a good seat, a good table, but. It's funny, I did. That's a good

3:41 issue. I made a ton of mistakes and learned a ton, but I got lucky with those mistakes You know, I'd guaranteed a lease, which is something I'll never do again, as long as I live, and got away

3:51 with that. And, you know, we put together a good product. My partners were amazing, and so it worked out okay. I'm not sure it was a great risk-adjusted return, but it was not the horror story

4:03 that so many people had. And how do you ultimately make money off that? Do you, it turns into a cash flowing entity and - Yeah, I mean, you just don't really sell these restaurants, do you? No,

4:13 I mean, I think it's rare. I mean, some people have been, you know, Carrabas guys went into the common bond and stuff like that. But I mean, you take a business that it starts at a 70 gross

4:23 margin business. So it looks like, you know, it should be good. You find that you can go from 70 to 20 very, very quickly. So if you're operating in a super high level, you can, you can make

4:32 good money. But single, you know, single operator business, you know, don't really do that. So you get down to the, you know, low teens and low single digits really, really quickly. But if

4:42 you pay attention and you have a good product and people come, you can, it's a, it is a, you know, positive cash line business. Okay. I want to, I want to come back because I want to, I want

4:52 to hear trading stuff on here. All the stops, but who are you? Well, I'm not going to offer any trading anything. So you got my back to him. Fair enough. Leslie, my story is a little different

5:01 than Mark's. Um, I am from Dallas and I wanted to get out of Texas, went to New York, studied there, worked there. I thought 80 hours a week was for sure and really hard, but I, I'm going to

5:12 ask you to move the mic just a little closer to yourself. There you go. You said however you want to be. Yeah, there you go. Jacob yells at us, our editor, if we're not close enough to Mike.

5:22 If it's close enough or do you need to like shove it closer? Oh yeah, that's better. Perfect. Lord, you're not joking. That's right up in my face, okay. Good, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay,

5:31 so. We're in New York. In New York, work there, 80 hours a week. I just thought I loved it, but it was basically my Peter Pan. Like there's no growing up. I mean, I was partying, having a

5:40 wonderful time, just working really hard And

5:45 I did some research at Northwestern, and then I was working for neuropsychologists in Florida. And when we started a family, all of a sudden I said, I can't work anymore. And I had been home with

5:56 my kids for, I think my oldest just started 15 yesterday. So my mom - Oh, congratulations. Thank you, it's been crazy. But yeah, it's been a different animal. You know what you have to look

6:05 forward to? My oldest, 22, last time she came to town, we went to a bar and got a drink. Oh, I'm actually waiting for her to drive me around when I'm drunk and she can take me where I need to go.

6:16 I can't wait. We're almost there. That is what I'm looking forward to. My designated driver. I love that. Yes, but yeah. I mean, I thought New York working in the city, all that was hard,

6:25 but no. Raising kids has taught me so much more and there is no off time. There is no, you can't drop the ball on a project. You know, they're like, that's your kid. So it was a different

6:34 investment in life and it was a different pressure. And I think I've learned so

6:40 much more from that than I could have ever learned working. But either way, if you work or you stay home with your kids, you have to do what's best for you, you know, 'cause there's no right or

6:48 wrong. But for me, it was staying home, which I love. So how'd you get back to Houston? Well, or are you in Houston? I'm in the woodlands. It was my compromise with my husband. The company he

6:58 was at at the time was headquartered in Houston. It's closer to Dallas than it is Houston. It feels that way sometimes. But no, I love Houston. My family's here, I love it. I mean, we have a

7:08 huge Latin family and they're all over the place. Yeah, I come to Houston all the time with, you know, I can't be the food. No, that's, that's certainly true. You know, it's funny. We're

7:17 doing a financing around right now. Digital wildcatters. We've kind of morphed from being podcast bros of who will say fuck during a podcast or something like that and to a bleeding edge AI software

7:33 company. Cause we've trained a language model on all our content We've just pulled together a bunch of other energy content. We're now building AI apps for, uh, for energy companies and, or was,

7:49 oh, so we're doing this financing round and it's funny because we'll go talk to Silicon Valley, um, venture capital funds. Oh, this is great tech and all this and they're all just thoroughly

8:02 convinced we're not going to be able to recruit a CTO to Houston you know, just like their way off pace. Yeah, I mean, so much to offer here. Thank you. It has everything you could need. Yeah.

8:14 I'd be best. I'd be better remote dying Austin if you had to anyway, so there's plenty. Well, this is funny. This is my Silicon Valley versus Houston story. So my parents, this was 22 years ago

8:26 'cause my daughter was six months old when this happened. So

8:31 22 years ago, my dad has a heart attack in San Francisco. They're there for a bar mitzvah or a wedding or something. And anyway, everything's fine And dad tells mom, go to the brunch today. You

8:43 know, you don't have to sit at the hospital here. So my mom goes to the brunch and this very sweet lady from San Francisco comes up and tells my mom, goes, aren't you lucky that your husband's

8:55 heart attack happened in San Francisco where they could get real medical care? Stop it. Is that a Texas? And my mom's just like a da-bakey cooly. I think we do guardian pretty well and used it,

9:06 but. Anyway, all right So. Okay, we've established where y'all are from. Yeah. Before we go to how y'all meet and all this good looking gold stuff over here, tell me a Bill Perkins story or a

9:21 trading story or something. 'Cause I pretend to be an energy podcast. So let's check the box before we get out of the guest. What's a Bill Perkins story? Bill and I have been friends for a long,

9:32 long time. Most of the stories are probably not suitable for a podcast to be perfectly appropriate for it. Pency, uh-oh. What's that? Uh-oh. I'm a little worried about what you're doing today.

9:39 Yeah, no, I should probably come prepared for that. I knew you'd want to

9:44 talk about like Bill or John, but I didn't think this through all the way. I think the only, my sense of Bill, and I don't know Bill perfectly well, but a couple of times we've hung out. Great

9:55 dude, you know, he's awesome. He's been really good to me.

10:00 But my sense is he's not gonna be mad at whatever story you say. He's gonna be mad that he didn't get to say it. Do you see how this is working? He wants you to open Pandora's box right now. No,

10:10 no. Just let that breathe. Well, and you in. I gave y'all all the BS about how we can edit whatever. No, this is not getting edited out, Mark. It's not really a story so much, but I think

10:20 what's so cool about Bill is how smart he is and his mind works in a way, like unlike really anybody else. He's got, there's so much going on up there. He's got so many things going on, and yet

10:31 he still distills it down and makes the most time for having fun Nobody lives life, like Bill, you see him, some of the stuff he does on social media, which I don't really understand why he does

10:42 all that, but whatever, but it's all real. He's nothing stage, nothing's fake. He's extremely genuine and a heck of a lot of fun, but what's a good story? Can we come back to it? Yeah, we can

10:53 come back to it. My bill

10:56 story, I've got one that's probably not appropriate for the podcast either, but like his house in Austin, Has this big globe thing? that has natural gas hooked up to it. And you get a

11:08 flamethrower and you should like show up, hey Chuck, you wanna set this on fire? And I'm like, who is this dude? Why is he doing this to me? This is the first time I met him. But yeah, I set

11:18 the thing on fire, it's pretty cool. So most of the times I've been, sorry. It has been put on fire. I've never played with the blowtorch. I love fire, so I should probably ask to do that next

11:27 time. Did you see the turtles? The turtles. Yeah, what are the turtles? He's got three, maybe four now He and Lara just got them maybe in the past six months. These massive, like hundred year

11:37 old, I guess they're sea turtles. Yeah. And they've got their own little habitat in the background. No, I didn't see it when I was there. It wasn't the turtles. Okay, yeah, it's been less

11:46 than a year, I think, since they've had those. And I think they're adding to them. And so it's quite a property. Nice. So have you gotten to hang out with Bill yet? I'm joined now, Bill. You

11:55 have not met, Bill. Mark, I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't think I know Bill. We like keeping you from Bill. I know, now I need to know who this man is, I want to know the secret stories actually

12:02 you want to hang out with bill cuz His wife Laura

12:07 is like the coolest person on the planet. She's awesome. She is awesome. Yeah.

12:11 Yeah, Laura is actually a happy El Mio customer too. So which is cool. We just got some shots of her wearing the stuff. Oh yeah, I know. That's his wife. No, I saw her. Yes, to Tom. Tom and

12:20 I work together with one of Bill's mini ventures. Skyfight. Nice. Oh yeah, now I know she is. All right, so how did y'all two meet? I asked. So I'll take one thing just 'cause I'm proud of the

12:32 word and then you could take the rest of it. We're actually cousins-in-law, which I looked up and it is a thing. That's a thing, that's not a thing. It's a thing. You said it is. I haven't

12:42 checked it. It's a thing. Well, they're for a must be true. Jet GPT says something. Jet GPT also says that I'm

12:48 known for wrestling alligators in southern Louisiana. So we should believe it. I have no idea how that came up. Well, on that note, I can give you my Bill Perkins story then. Bill Perkins was

12:59 intent on making sure

13:03 John Arnold on Wikipedia. And so this is when Wikipedia was effectively the chat GPT of the time. And so he insisted that John was the world's greatest robot dancer. And so it would keep getting

13:15 taken down. And Bill, I think they'll actually hired people to keep putting it back on the Wikipedia. And so it stayed there for so long. And then at one point, just to close the arc on the joke,

13:25 he brought in whoever the world's best robot dancer really is, I think somebody pretty famous, I can't remember the name right now, into the office to like film him robot dancing with John. So

13:35 that's a good story for you. Oh, that's awesome. I do love that. But back to ask, yes. I'm married to Alex's first cousin, who they're a huge family, as she mentioned, and they're super close.

13:47 And so we met at another one of their cousins wedding and her husband and I were kind of the two of the three gringo outsiders in this crazy Colombian family. So we hit it off pretty well. This is

13:58 what I'm telling them Mark, my husband, and my brother-in-law, VS. We call them, they're from Green go Island, you know, 'cause it's a bunch of crazy Latin people and then these three white

14:07 guys, who we love, obviously we've chosen them, we love them. We chose them. Again, my family got stuck with them, but we make good choices. So, but I will say that Natasha is his wife. She

14:18 and I have grown up together. We were shipped off to Columbia every summer, had the best times of our lives there. I mean, we grew up together. We did everything together. I think of her more

14:27 like a sister, 'cause we're that close. Her kids call me Tia and same for my kids I mean, we're just, she means the world to me. And in our huge family, she and I always bonded. We're just six

14:37 months apart. We just, you know, and our mom's are sisters. So it's kind of like sister to sister and it's just been a beautiful relationship that I've had with her. And luckily, she married a

14:46 cool guy, 'cause it would have sucked if she didn't. But I got Mark in this package. No pressure. Yeah, no, but I lucked out, 'cause we got Mark and Mark's a great guy. And he's good to her

14:55 and great dad, just three kids. And so it's been very lucky.

14:60 I guess that takes us into why we're right here. Why are we here? You wanna tell them about that? Why are y'all here? Well, we started a jewelry company and it was launched because it came from a

15:10 place of love. It wasn't something we set out to do, it's something that happened because we saw a need in the market, something that was missing. And it's because of Natasha, his wife, my

15:20 cousin.

15:22 She had a milestone birthday coming up, I will say that. You can't say which one it was. I would never say which birthday it was, a very big birthday coming up. And we were gonna go on a trip and

15:32 there's just maybe like 10 of us going. And at the time, her youngest was nine months and her oldest was two years old. And she was just saying, Alex, I can't go. Like, I can't, I've never

15:43 left the baby. I mean, this, you could see the, you could hear it on the phone, the mommy guilt. It was just like coming out of her pores. And I was just breaking my heart and I said, Natasha,

15:52 Tasha, Tasha, like, you're a good girl, you deserve some time away. Let's go And I was truly concerned. You could see that. I'm a mom of two. I mean, we know what that mommy guilt is. It's

16:03 illogical, it's irrational. It doesn't make sense, but you carry it with you regardless. Oh my God, it's like totally real. So the first time we left Charlie the oldest, she was about a year

16:16 old and we were gone maybe 48 hours. I had a board meeting. They always did the board meeting in Beaver Creek. We flew there, skied for half a day, did our board meeting and then our board dinner

16:29 And we immediately caught the first flight back in the morning. Sure. Well, what was so funny about it is, so Charlie started speaking when she was eight months old. This kid was just chatter box.

16:41 So anyway, we get back, she's a year old, she's hanging out with Grandpa. And she goes, Grandpa, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave. And I go, Oh, this is so great, dad. You have a

16:50 relationship with my child. And dad looks at me and goes, Yep, we've figured out. We have a common enemy. It's you, pal. And they have acted that way ever since. They pulled tricks on me all

17:04 the time. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, Kim just cried all the way to the, my ex-wife cried all the way to the airport. It makes no sense, you can't even help it. I mean, and I just sensed it from

17:14 her and I just, I just knew which is going through like minor or older and been there, my kids and I were like, Peace out, mama, see you later. You know, very different. But when they're

17:22 little, it's a different type of agony. Anyway, so I was thinking, what do I get her? You know, Natasha is just a special person And I wanted to get her something that, well, one, it's a

17:32 milestone birthday, it was an important day. But something that would help her through this, I just knew it couldn't be a candle, right? They can't be perfume, it had to be something special.

17:43 And so an idea came to me and I thought to myself, like, what if I could create something that would allow her to take her daughter's kisses with her across the ocean? Like, what if I could make

17:54 something that. would ease that mom guilt and allow her to just have some peace of mind if I could bring her girls to her. And so I called my aunt, my aunt Raina, and I said Raina, I need

18:05 pictures of the girls. And I went through a whole pile of them and I sat on my floor and I started creating basically this concept of a necklace. And then I took this to a jeweler who told me I was

18:16 crazy, that this isn't a thing, this isn't something you do. And I said, please, I beg him, please just try. Like I want these kisses on a necklace, I wanna do this And it wasn't something.

18:26 Anyway, he did it for me and what ended up happening was, we got these, like these necklaces, I put them in a box, wrapped it up for her. We go on this trip two days in and Natasha has this

18:36 bandaid on her hand. This frozen bandaid that won't even stay on her hand. It is peeling off. And I wasn't gonna give her her gift 'cause we were gonna celebrate the big day on day five. But she

18:47 just kept pushing this bandaid on. I'm like, Tush, what are you doing with this bandaid? Peel it off. And she says, I can't, Giselle, her daughter gave it to me.

18:56 And I'm like, What? It's not gonna last another 10 seconds, little on the rest of the trip. And she keeps pressing it on. And I said, You know, we just have to do birthday early. So we're in

19:06 the middle of lunch. I go grab the boxes, come to the table. And I'm like, Tosh, here's your gift. And a surprise as she was not even thinking we were getting her a gift because Tosh is like

19:17 that, opens them up and she says, And in there were pictures of her daughtersand each one had a necklace And she says, Wait, are these their lips? So the necklaces are these for people who can't

19:30 see the, basically the exact outline of their lips. And we made it into 14-karat gold. 3D as well, yeah? Yeah, 3D is this piece that's literally like their kisses. And you can see, 'cause I

19:42 put a picture in the box of each one. You could see the differences. You can see like the slight slope of one daughter's kiss versus the other one. You can see that they're their lips. Like it's

19:51 just a complete replica of their mouths And so importing care gold on an ECLIS. And she puts it on and it sounds ridiculous, I know, but you see it's like almost something you could have like, it

20:03 was in the air, she put it on and all of a sudden, it's like she

20:08 exhaled. And you could see kind of like the weight go. And it's something that seems silly in that moment, but something that's tangible, like this gift, this necklace, just had the ability to,

20:18 you know, relieve the stress and the mom guilt. And it kind of just changed her for the rest of the trip. And I was shocked too I mean, I wanted to give her a gift that would help her, but I

20:27 didn't think it would have this effect or to this extent. And she didn't take them off for the rest of the trip. Those two knuckles have stayed on her neck. She still didn't take them off. Yeah.

20:34 How nice. Yeah, and so it just changed everything. And I had no idea she was doing any of this. She had asked about a jeweler a while back and I was like, Okay. And I was blown away. I mean,

20:44 first of all, they were beautiful and second of all, but like the impact that had on my wife was it was incredible. And I was looking at it, like, she's telling me the process and I'm like, I

20:51 think we can do this Like this, this, people, other people are gonna have this reaction. This is a thing, you know, one of the things we stressed upon like it's guy if I was making things easy

21:00 for people. Like that's, that's the successful business. So here we're making something easy for people that's actually really meaningful for them too. You know, so learning kind of all the steps

21:07 of building and like, I think let's, you want to do this and she goes, yeah, yeah, I want to do this. And so it took us a few months to kind of fully get into it, but we, we make kind of made

21:16 the commitment to each other and said, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna make this thing and take it to market. And you know, with the cool thing about Alex's, this was just one idea. She's got,

21:24 you know, so many different products We, the other thing we do now is a, is a pet park. So like, you know, there's people care more about their dogs and then more people have it. And so that's

21:32 our, that's our other product. Lara has, has one of those for, for her dog plant. But yeah, so it's been, it's been exciting, you know, working together and getting this thing on. And we're,

21:42 we're gonna open the store sometime this week. Now I'm like fascinated. Okay, so decide I want to send my kiss to the girlfriend. So, okay. How do I do this? Let me tell you the process, but

21:54 let me tell you why this works. Oh, by the way, this is not a commercial endorsement. No, no, no funds have changed hands here. Oh, no, I mean, I, no funds for me. I'm just kidding. We're

22:04 good. So no, so this is good for, like you're talking about the girlfriend here, like this is something that anyone can do because we've made it as simple as possible. All you have to do is take

22:14 a picture of this person or the paw. That's it. Yeah, you take a picture. Now I wouldn't. Are you kissing? No, you literally take straight face picture, your nose points right at the camera

22:24 and you don't smile. You're just, that is it. And then just up, just one click uploaded on the website. That's it. It's all you do. Upload it. Our designers take it. We get the shape of the

22:34 lips. We make sure it's, and I am neurotic. Like I accept it. Yeah, I'm like, I don't like the amount of notice. I'm glad I'm on this side of the table. Yeah. It's a lot of convenience. So

22:45 even if it's a millimeter off, like anything is off, it goes right back. We want to capture the exact outline of those lips. We want to make sure that mom, And whoever sees them knows. that that

22:55 kiss right there is no one else's, but my kiss. Like it has to be exact. If it's not exact, it's no good. It's a cookie cutter that everyone else has. Like we don't want that. We want a replica

23:04 of the paw. I mean, literally, paws are wider. I didn't know paws could be as different as they are, but we've captured it to other little imperfections. Same thing, you just pull the dog foot

23:13 up. The paw goes like this. Yeah, those are a little trickier 'cause the dogs aren't completely compliant. So I know it takes a few shots, but so as long as you, once you figure that out, and

23:22 once you get the right shot, you upload it and that's the rest of the tape, care itself. We just need to see the pad of the ball, you know? So they upload it, it goes to our designers, we make

23:29 sure that it is - You've got two different dogs on each year, right? One's Mikey, one's Maverick, and the shapes are different, and we put inscriptions on the back of their names or whatever. Oh

23:36 wow, move your hands so I can see. Oh wow. Yeah, so they're both, I got paws on my earrings. Yeah, I wasn't really sure that one was gonna work. I got dogs, dog paws, a dog paw. We did the

23:46 first three, they were all totally different. Oh,

23:49 so different. That was pretty cool. Yeah, no idea, like I've never looked a dog's paw in my life and I am a dog person. I'm totally gonna say this 'cause he

23:57 doesn't listen to my podcast anyway, but

24:00 my girlfriend's son, she'd much rather have the dog prints.

24:06 Hey, my dog is my best friend. Yeah. Yeah. We get it. It's gonna be funny if this is like the first one he listens to, right? Yeah, exactly. All right, he won't. She can do both. I've got

24:16 kisses on my neck that never come off and I pause on my earrings. There you go. You know, you could do it all. And that's, so it goes for our designers, you check it and then you get a proof to

24:24 make sure that you're okay with it. Oh, wow. That it looks the way you want. We give you an out, like it's literally will be the, it's the lips right over your picture to show you that that is

24:33 exactly what we're making. You approve it. And then we make it into 14-karat gold, yellow, white, rose, or sterling silver. And people are always like, well, are you going to plate it? Can

24:46 you do gold plate it to save us some money? And the truth is, could we? Sure, are we? No. Because. To us, this is not like a piece that we want to damage. Like that bandit that Natasha had on

25:01 her hand was something so simple and silly, but it is a tangible thing that connected her to her children, to her child. And that was coming off her hand, no matter what she did, that wasn't

25:10 staying. We wanna make a replica that you can have forever. I don't want to give a custom or something that's not gonna last. I don't wanna give them something that's gonna tarnish. Like this

25:19 changes the concept of what is an heirloom Like we're gonna be making hands soon. Like I want my parents' hands on my bracelet. Like I want them holding hands and I'm gonna have their hands on my

25:28 wrist forever. We're going, we're going, you know, we're coming up on Thanksgiving, you know, in a week and a half or two weeks. And my mom to this day uses the napkins where the kids took

25:40 their hand, put it down and they made the turkey out of it. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. It's those little things, I mean, it seems silly. It's like the macaroni necklace. It's like, but we've

25:48 taken that concept and kind of elevated it. We've made it into a piece of jewelry That is beautiful. eye-catching and it will last you. And I would, I mean, I love the earrings that my grandma

25:57 gave me, don't get me wrong. But if I get a kiss from my grandma and I get to keep her lips forever, if I get to keep my parents' hands on my wrist forever, like my dog is not gonna be around for

26:07 another century as much as I wish he would outlive me, 'cause I don't know what I'm gonna do when he's not here. But now I have his paw, like I have him with me wherever I go. And that's what this

26:16 is all about. It's like creating that connection. And wherever you go, no matter how busy you are as moms, I mean, even doing this business, I'm busy. I can't be with them when I want to be

26:26 with them. And I catch myself putting my hand on the kisses on my chest. And it's almost like they're there. It's crazy weird, but it brings you closer to them. So if we have these items that are

26:37 a replica of somebody you love, and we've turned it into this elevated piece of jewelry that you get to wear, you get to pass down, I mean, it's just kind of changed the game. And when we

26:46 realized that this is a thing, we wanted to go out there and share it Because what Natasha felt in that moment. It's not just for Tasha to feel that way. She's not the only mom who feels guilty

26:56 when she's not with her kids. You know, there's so many of us out there. There's so many dads that feel that way 'cause they're always traveling. Like we have cufflinks for men. Yep, oh, Mark's

27:04 got

27:08 a lot. Get in my way. Yeah, you start. They're from here. I got my sons coming, yeah. And also wives, like, you know, you want to do a little kissy. You could put that on your husband's

27:13 cufflinks and there you go. I mean, I'm wearing a ring. I'm just saying this is something that you go, where it goes, where you go. We're always on the go. And this is that little something

27:21 that brings you closer to the people you love. And that's what El Mio is all about. El Mio is about connection. It's not just jewelry. You get that anywhere. But this is like jewelry that we,

27:30 one, have been very conscientious not to like gouge prices at all because we are not even putting into our price what it costs us to get the customization. We're taking what 14 karat gold costs on

27:43 the market, what other people are charging the same. And that's our fee. We're not even trying to like take it to the roof, even though we could cause it's custom We've been very reserved. you

27:52 can speak to this. We've really tried to. Yeah, no, I mean, I think you see some of like the super luxury jewelry ran margins. Unfortunately, we're not offering it margins like that. We wanted

28:01 it to be, I mean, obviously it's got to be a good business, but we want it to be as approachable as possible. That's kind of why we offer the silver product as well. Everybody wants to feel

28:10 connected to someone, you know, so whether you're, you know, really rich or not. So. That's interesting. Important. We want everyone to have that connection Like it's, it's just, we think

28:22 it's important. And we want to make sure that we are conscientious of people's situations and their hearts. And we're doing the best we can to keep it fair on the market and, but we also want to

28:34 get the word out because we all feel like we're being torn in a million directions. And no matter what we do, we can't ever figure it out. And having this silly piece of jewelry that's beautiful

28:45 for some reason just eases that and it does It just kind of makes you feel close when you're stressed or close when you're far. Yeah, it's just something that's not out there yet, but it should be,

28:55 and that's why we're here. And it's real, my dad, who's a doctor, you know, I call all the time. Oh my God, I've traumatized my kids. I've done this, and Dad's line is usually something to

29:08 the effect of, you know, we're here as a species because we survived being chased from cave to cave by saber to tigers. I think your kids are gonna be fine But yeah, no, it's definitely a real

29:22 thing. So like, is there a website? What is the? Yeah, we're at immunejorrycom. We're gonna turn it on today. Spell it. Oh, I-L-M-I-O. And we spelled jewelry like Americans. Funny, I kept

29:36 Googling, how do you spell jewelry? And apparently we spell it differently here than the people in the UK and Australia. They spell it J-E-W-E-L-L-E-R-Y Right, but we spell it J-E-W-E-L-R-Y,

29:50 right?

29:50 I-L-M-I-O-L-M-E-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O-L-M-I-O L M I

29:52 O L M E O jewelry dot com. Uh, yeah. So we're, we're, um, if y'all seen the, uh, Nate Bergazzi being a president, Washington on Saturday night live. Oh, I think I did see that. Yeah. You

30:03 totally got to go Google it cause the, the, the, the whole shtick is we're going to fight. Why do we fight for freedom, for liberty, for our own system of weights and measurements. We shall

30:16 have things. We will not put them in leaders. We will put them in courts. How many courts are in a gallon, sir? Nobody knows, you know, but he have to complicate it. So when he came back on,

30:30 he did it again and, and they were fighting to be able to spell Jeff two ways, the normal way J E F F and the weird way with the G off. Yeah. And so it's funny. My girlfriend's British. And so I

30:44 don't understand half of of what she says and half of it's just because of the accent. I don't know, it may make things easier. And then the other half of it is, they just have weird things they

30:55 say like, that dude's a real onion sandwich. Actually, I don't know the other thing in for two years, I don't know that one. I don't know that one. I don't know that one either. The dog's

31:02 bollocks one always blew me away. That's a good thing. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, yeah. But no bollocks is bad, but the dog's bollocks is very good. Right, so

31:12 one of my girlfriend's best friend's mother is the secretary to the Saudi ambassador. And she trains the new ambassador always on bollocks, 'cause they're like 12 different meanings for it too, but

31:29 bollocks, bollocks, you know, or dog's bollocks, all that, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, so a lot of times I'm sitting there going, Hold on, you gotta explain that. We don't have that word

31:38 here. There's a lot of, do y'all have this word here? No, we don't have this word here. So we've figured out how to spell jewelry. Yes. We probably spent too much time on that, huh? No!

31:51 Well, hopefully Jacob will be able to see it and scroll it across the bottom

31:57 when he edits. So we all are cool to come on. Yeah, thanks. We want to diamond bill out some more. We want to diamond bill out some more. What can I do for Bill? You want to ask me something?

32:09 I'll see if I can answer it or - So my favorite Bill story, and I knew the outcome was him bidding on the sugar shack Right, so when he came on the podcast, one, he convinced me that he can

32:25 actually make money trading natural gas despite the fact that billions and billions of dollars are traded. And his whole take was at the end of the day, billions and billions of dollars are traded,

32:38 but it's traded every day by people who aren't doing price discovery. They're literally just taking a price. If I'm an oil and gas producer, what can I hedge my gas at? If I'm an airline, what

32:50 can I hedge oil at? What can I buy oil at? Whatever. And so he said, the few of us that actually sit there and study this provide liquidity to the market. We're an insurance company. And what do

33:02 you charge when you're an insurance company? A big old fat premium, right? So he goes, I make big fat premiums for providing liquidity. And I actually bought that. I was like, okay, I'll give

33:13 you that, Bill. But I think it's legitimate in a couple ways. One, I mean, there's obviously the supply and demand of the physical product and that ultimately clears the price. But there is, I

33:21 think part of what Bill's talking about is just supply and demand of the paper that hedges it as well. And so when those get in balanced, you need traders to warehouse that difference. And when

33:31 they can find that in a way that lines up with the longer term supply and demand of the product itself, that's where there's edge. And that's where you get to buy expensive paintings or houses and

33:39 boats and stuff like that. But did he talk to you about his rationale behind the painting? 'Cause that was actually pretty fascinating Yeah., so he told it,

33:51 Give us your take on it 'cause it was really cool. So do you know the Sugar Shack painting? It's your way too young, but back in the day, it was on the cover of Marvin Gaye album. It was also

33:57 good time. It took the good times of opening. Was it opening or closing or anything, I think? Yeah, it's really cool. I had no idea. What's the artist's name? I'm like - Barnes. Ernie Barnes.

34:07 Ernie Barnes. Ernie Barnes. And Ernie Barnes was a football player. He grew up really poor in North Carolina. And his mom, he was like, I want to be an artist My mom said, you go do it. The

34:18 New York Jets signed him to an NFL football contract but didn't let him play 'cause they just wanted him painting. No. Yeah. The Hess family was like, hey, you actually kind of suck at football.

34:31 We're gonna pay you those so you can paint. That's a good part of our artist. I used to work for Hess Energy Trading. So he's kind of tied that in there. No, but I remember when Bill bought it

34:40 and I came back and it had seemed like Reserve or the, not the reserve, but the expectation was maybe like two or three million dollars. Right. And they think it went to 15 or 13 or something like

34:52 that, something like that. And I'm sitting here thinking like, well, you know, these people are set these, these prices, they should know something, you know, how, how, how do you go that

34:59 far over? And of course, there's the adage that, you know, it's something's worth whatever the second person wants to, you know, like that sets the value. But Bill goes to explain to me how

35:10 this art was just fundamentally over underpriced, you know, either do a systematic racism or what have you, but that if you look at, you know, a Warhol painting that's 100 million or 200 million

35:21 dollars or whatever, and there's dozens of them. And there's also, you know, dozens of other people in the pop art world that sets his value. And here's, you know, someone who's, I'm not an

35:31 art guy, so I can't say if he's truly art, it was important, but arguably is important for what he's doing. And now we're at, you know, one-tenth of the price, or maybe even one-hundredth of

35:40 the price goes, that spread, again, like, both things like that, that spread's just, it's just way. way too wide. And he kind of, you know, talking about and again, the piece is iconic. I

35:49 didn't even realize what it was. I said, that looks a lot like the thing from good times. I remember that as a kid, he goes, it's the thing from good time. Oh my God. Oh, that was cheap. Yeah.

35:57 I can't believe you got it for that little. That was kind of how that conversation went. But that's how he kind of thinks about everything. He got to do the same thing with with baseball cards. I

36:05 think I guess I don't want to give away his his edge and the strategy may still be going on. So I'll keep, I'll keep that one quiet. But yeah, I think looking for for value looking for things that

36:14 are, you know, undervalued or just thinking about things a different way

36:20 is what's really, really cool about him. It's definitely rubbed off on me on a lot of things too. Well, what I've won just him telling the story when he came on the podcast was fascinating because

36:30 I knew how it was going to end. But at the end of the day, it was still just, you know, he's such a great story to all right. He's good. So he's talking about outbidding the Japanese and all

36:38 this. But the thing I I thought that was so cool, as he said, I bought it. He said, Immediately we're getting phone callsfrom Black America going, Man, I'm so glad you bought it. And he's like,

36:50 Screw that. He goes, Ernie Barnes deserves to have the Japaneseway overpay for it or the Germans way overpay for it. You know, we shouldn't take a discount just to keep it in Black America. And

37:05 so I love that mindset. Now we want Ernie to get overpaid by everybody. What's going on? He single-handedly raised the floor on all of his work and kind of brought a real highlight and focus to it.

37:18 People were calling me about saying, Hey, can I talk to Bill about the thing? I'm like, Yeah, man, I'll ask him. You know, whatever. I took my kids to see it 'cause he had it in the Houston

37:27 Museum of Fine Arts and he took my kids to see it. Is that where it is? No, he just did it for six months, I think, after he got it. I'm actually not sure where. Actually, I think he may have

37:35 lent it to another museum, but I'm not sure. Yeah, it was doing a tour Yeah, I want to say it went to Cleveland It did. That sounds right. Houston, Cleveland, and then it was in New York or LA

37:44 or something. It shared that. It's cool. Buddy shares that. It's really cool. You share the art. I feel like I want to be built when I grow up. Like, who is like, I feel like - He's got a

37:52 book called - It's like a unicorn. He's got a book called Die Was Zero. I gave it to Joyce, actually. You should, it's a great book. Our other cousin, this

37:59 is a big family. Yeah, but yeah, his whole point is, money is not something you should accumulate and at the very end give to somebody It's, you ought to spend it all along the way to enjoy your

38:12 life. My parents say that too. What are you gonna do bearing me with my money? Like, it's true. Yeah, he equates it to water skiing. If you love water skiing, do you wait 'til you're 80 to

38:22 water ski? No, you water ski your whole life. Yeah, I was really proud of him when he did the book 'cause he'd been talking that way forever. Like, ever since I know him, he's talking about,

38:30 he had this kind of dialogue with zero mantra, like, you know, what are you waiting for? What do you mean for? But the way he always said it, it didn't completely click It's like he's like,

38:38 Well, you know, live like you're gonna buy tomorrow. Well, what if I don't die tomorrow? That I've, that I've got a little bit of a problem. And he didn't really kind of hone into the sort of

38:46 the thoughtful, like what was going on in his head about what was really driving it. And then he, he put it, you know, in the book and got lucky enough to read like one of the early drafts was

38:52 like, oh shit, Bill. Like this, yeah, this makes a ton of sense. Like this is going to truly change how people think about things and said, you know, because at first I thought it was just,

39:01 oh, it's nice and easy for a rich guy to say, you know, oh, just, just spend all your money. But, but I think he did a really good job of framing it as, as, you know, treating money as like

39:09 life energy. And so you have what you have, but use it, you know, to the fullest. So yeah, it's a, it's a cool book. You should definitely like energy. Last check you right needs to bounce.

39:20 So I've told the kids, I'm

39:26 a, so a really close friend of mine went up dying from, from brain cancer. And I appreciate that shitty, shitty disease Yes. You actually don't want to be friends with me. I've had more than my

39:38 fair share have - brain cancer. It's just a nasty disease. And in the last 35 years, the standard of care is improved so that you get one more month out of life, ie. it hasn't improved at all.

39:52 You know, and so, and it's just not enough people get it where they've really thrown enough money at it. You know, but anyway, so he, he before he passed away, James started a foundation to

40:03 raise money for the broach. Yeah, the broach foundation. So I am seed this. They would do stand up for brain comedy for stand up for brain cancer. And they would have a comedian come on, I am

40:15 seed it for the first few years. And the first year I did it. The whole trade off was really tough on people were saying, Hey, I can't come because I'm gonna be crying my eyes out. You know, and

40:28 James can be right in front of us dying. You know, so that being said, I knew I had to get people laughing pretty quick And so my device that I did with it as I got up there and I said Hey, James,

40:40 Jamie, you know, you guys are so gray. You've handled this with such grace, class, and dignity. You know, you've been a true inspiration to me. I just want you to get kind of this clap from

40:51 the audience. And then I said, let's face it, this has happened to me. I'd have blown it all on blowing hookers, you know? And the audience kind of got silenced. And then fortunately some big

41:04 fat dude in the back started laughing like there was no tomorrow. It just broke the ice and the ripple I was at that event. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was good. Yeah, no, it was, but you know,

41:14 that's, I mean, that's Bill's die was zero. You know, it's, you know. But during those seconds of silence before the fat guy in the back started laughing, were you just like? Oh, I, that was

41:22 25 minutes if felt like. Right, exactly. Yeah, you just want to hide. I have ruined the brooch gala forever. That's it, I'm that guy. But hey, it went well, you did good then. Your

41:32 girlfriend, I should maybe two young, but she'll probably appreciate it. The famous soccer player, George Best, who was, who was Manchester United, big, big deal. But he was also, I guess,

41:41 kind of a famous playboy and party boy. And I think this is back in the '60s when sports was a lot less professional than it is today, you know, with people looking after their bodies and stuff.

41:49 But there was a quote, you know, saying, Well, what happened to all the money, Georgi, guys? I spent 90 of my money on women and booze and the rest I wasted.

41:60 Life goals. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, good luck. Thanks so much. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. Absolutely.