#TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙

2024 End-of-Year Recap Video 🥳 🎉🎊🍾🥂

• BobbyD, D'Hustle and Raymond...don't call him RayRay

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The episode explores the nostalgic and transformative journey through the tech landscape, highlighting personal stories of resilience and growth. As hosts share tales from the past, they discuss the importance of mentorship, community, and adapting to emerging technologies while inspiring listeners to believe in themselves and seize opportunities ahead. 

• Reflection on the rise and fall of tech retail giants 
• Importance of self-belief and overcoming hardships 
• Nurturing mentorship and community connection 
• Innovations reshaping career paths in technology 
• Conversations about AI and its implications on the workforce 
• Encouragement to embrace one's unique journey in tech

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Speaker 1:

I. I am your host, bobby D, and I'm here to introduce you to season number three of the tech hustle. If you miss season number two, if they miss season number two, y'all need to go listen.

Speaker 1:

I promise you, and we're taking it up to another level because we're going to be doing some audio and video recording this time. See, I can see what we look like on youtube. Right, throw it up d, let us see who you is, right? All right, let's give our our host and co-host a quick introduction. We got d hustle to my left. What's up my man, everything's good.

Speaker 3:

Raymond, don't call him ray ray you good player, wait, wait to the camera. Give him a deuces man.

Speaker 1:

Just say hi to him, right and, like I said, I'm the host, bobby d um. This is the tech hustle and we over here, holding it down, I'm really trying to inspire y'all to do some great things in tech and really just uplift our community as much as we can.

Speaker 4:

So, bobby, d d hustle. You guys remember circuit city growing up? Oh yeah, I used to be in the store, shout out to circuit city. I know that all the good.

Speaker 2:

I actually had a I did in my car. I used to do stereo systems in my car. Oh, I used to do stereo systems.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so that them and sound device.

Speaker 2:

Oh, sound device.

Speaker 4:

I forgot about sound device.

Speaker 2:

Yes, did you have a system in your car and everything? Yeah, I had the system in the car. Yes, I had a 210 subwoofer. Man, I'm mad tweeters and yep I did too oh man. Yeah, that was good old days going.

Speaker 4:

I used to go into the flea market getting the system put in. Yeah, yeah, just the thumping getting all that man I was like obsessed with that growing up okay sound advice.

Speaker 1:

I remember that yeah, circuit city um another name for you guys.

Speaker 2:

Remember radio shack, oh radio I think there's still one, if I'm not mistaken, on forest and military. I'll stay close to that the forest, I think that was close that's gotta be close to you.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, there's no way, but that was one of the last ones that were there that's where I used to get all my shit. If I needed something for my tv, oh yeah, any little weird, quirky electronic thing you needed, you'd go to radio shack, for sure. Only radio shack I know that's still open is in the show stranger things, so that's the only one that goes. Yeah, but yeah, radio Shack. Growing up Circuit City.

Speaker 3:

All right, all right yeah going back old school.

Speaker 4:

So another one for you that put Radio Shack and you know Circuit City at business. Do you guys remember Newegg, newegg?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, the online store. Right yeah, the online store.

Speaker 4:

That's what kind of like you know started bringing the online stuff and that's what kind of killed Circuit City and. Radio Shack and all that. So what I bring this up, all these names, is there's a computer store opening up in Miami. It's called Micro Center.

Speaker 1:

Micro Center.

Speaker 4:

Yes, they're based out of Ohio and it's supposed to be like one of the biggest indoor computer stores in the country. So they're coming up here in 2024. We got to make a trip down there. I don't know when they're opening up. They're opening up this year down in miami. It's going to be very old school, like circuit city. Yeah, yeah, and you know, I mean, I know we got best buy, but best buy sells electronics. This is like old school computer stuff where you can go in and make your keyboards and make your motherboards. It's opening up down in miami. It's going to be huge fellas, wow. So yeah, I don't know when in 2024 it's opening up this year. So we definitely got to make a trip down there they're going to sell everything.

Speaker 2:

They're going to sell everything.

Speaker 4:

So, yeah, this is kind of why I'm bringing this up. It's called micro center, so we need to make a trip as tech hustle go down there, take our kids definitely, and yeah so yeah, keep an eye on it. Micro center, that's why I kind of wanted to bring it up. I still miss that old school going to me too.

Speaker 1:

I missed that, you know getting the mother.

Speaker 4:

I know you can get this stuff online now and stuff, but there's nothing like going into a store like picking your parts and building it and stuff.

Speaker 5:

I was able to get introduced to Facebook, twitter, where we met and then.

Speaker 5:

Andreessen, horowitz and then Asana, and after getting fired four times, I was in a point in my life where I was like you know what? All the feedback I'd heard was basically you're too much, you don't know. Like you don't like, basically you're too much right, like you don't know the rules. And I just got so tired of people like hating on me for me, not because of my job, not because I was doing anything wrong, but just because of who I was. And I was like I want to work with myself. I think I'm great, I'm awesome, so why not do it? And I started my company.

Speaker 7:

I big shout outs to her.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Basically what she's saying is if you fall, you can always get up.

Speaker 5:

And believe in yourself and love yourself enough to to like really trust yourself that what you're choosing and what is being called to you is the right thing. Being called to you is the right thing Because I had no idea how to start a company. I just was like, okay, I guess I'm going to do this Like the first six months I didn't have an LLC and didn't get incorporated until then, got myself into a lot of debt because I bootstrapped and I thought that was the only way.

Speaker 5:

And it wasn't good debt, right, it wasn't like a loan or anything like that, it was credit cards. And I had never had debt. So I was like okay, cool, but please don't do that. But please, whoever's listening, do not do that. Um, and thankfully I can say now four years later, I'm debt free um so my investment paid off, hey investing in yourself.

Speaker 1:

That that's key right there. Appreciate you and um.

Speaker 5:

And yeah, now, in four years you know, after me I made that decision I was able to land some pretty big clients, um, to date we've served about 5 000 people. We've um been able to, you know, have a thousand hours of coaching and about six million dollars generated and new, new offers and salary say that again.

Speaker 1:

Six say that again. Six million dollars generated and new, new offers and salary. Say that again. Six say that again six million big round of applause for catalina very much, and this is like listening to your story and understanding where you started from being able to get to a point where um other organizations just didn't see your value and and then you believing in yourself, even though that first ledge did require you to get that.

Speaker 1:

But then afterwards, just think about this impact Six million dollars in impact and people's lives that you have directly influenced. Give her another round of applause, bring that out. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6:

Honestly, I think, like, I think.

Speaker 7:

This is like almost everyone, but I always used to have like imposter syndrome.

Speaker 6:

It was so bad, like, and I remember like I really felt it the most when I was like switching from electrical engineering to computer science, because like that's a big change, and I was like junior year yeah I'm like am I, am I ready? To make that decision, yeah and I remember like, so I joined copath like in 2021, like 2022 that was.

Speaker 6:

The first class I took was mobile app development and I'm like this is fun, you know, like I do enjoy doing this and that's when, like that idea of like wanting to switch from hardware to software actually like came to my head and then I started coding technical interviews, but I was just very scared Am I sure I can do this? Am I actually sure I can do this? And it got so bad, where I could have a technical interview didn't go so well and I just stopped coding for two months, three months straight, I just went goodbye, closed the months, three months straight, like.

Speaker 1:

I just wouldn't even look at it.

Speaker 6:

Goodbye, close the laptop, put it in bag, goodbye, like. And it was really like hard to mentally get out of that space and I think that was like my biggest challenge is like trusting in myself and like believing, like you know, like making that change was worth it. Like trust, because at that point, like you don't know what the end goal is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6:

You're still in the process, like, how do you assure yourself that like you're making the right choice, how do you assure yourself that you're really good at what you're doing? And it's so funny how, like sometimes, that imposter syndrome used to creep up and I would find myself like going into different security. Yeah, I just I just felt, like you know, in that moment, like I really like software engineering, but I'm like I'm not sure I could code let me just try this and try that and try this and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, it's yeah it's really imposter syndrome now, um, in terms of your journey, um, and, and let me know if you cool with me talking about where your internship is gonna be, but go ahead and let us know where you're cool with me talking about where your internship is going to be? Oh for sure for sure but go ahead and let us know where you're going to be doing some summer interning at in the coming weeks coming months.

Speaker 6:

Okay, so I'm going to be in Redmond Washington with Microsoft Woo.

Speaker 1:

Look at that. That's what's up. Yo, it's literally lit over there because, um, I'm so proud of you, I'm so happy for you to have this opportunity. If y'all didn't hear it, evan is going to be at microsoft and turning this summer holding it down for all of them honestly, hard work, consistency.

Speaker 6:

You just have to practice like practice, like practice, because I think the one thing and I think it's life in general like nothing gets handed to anyone you have to work hard to get it and the moment you put in that work, you're gonna get it. You know, you just have to believe in yourself yeah you know and I always used to tell myself you know, you have to have faith you know, you have to be delusional, del.

Speaker 6:

You know you have to be delusional, delusional, like you have to be delusional. I remember, like before my Microsoft offer came, like I was talking to my friend and I'm like you know, I keep seeing like the Microsoft logo everywhere and he's like you're going to get used to it, you're going to see it posts about I started searching about. Oh, after grad I'm going to be in Seattle Just making sure that you see yourself in those spaces because you get to manifest those things. When you see it and believe it, it's going to come to pass. Work hard and it's all going to make sense in the end. Honestly, that's really my biggest advice Work hard and you'll get it. You'll get it. You'll get it 100%.

Speaker 11:

Thank you so much for that well, I will tell you, I consider myself an OG in tech shout outs to the OG's out there because when I first started in tech, I was working for Xerox she's taking it way back, way back. I've been doing the way back clock. At that time, xerox had large copiers.

Speaker 3:

And.

Speaker 11:

I was there selling door-to-door when we came out with the desktop copiers, so that was late 70s and then I got recruited by IBM, which was at that time Shut up. Yes, that was the Google of the day. For sure, 100% yes yes, One year I hired 16 people to be in our executive development program and eight of them happened to be black.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 11:

From the top business schools one from Cornell, one from MIT, four from Wharton one from. Uva and another one from Chicago. That's awesome's up and my manager told me we're sitting on a campus of over 14,000 people and my manager told me I hired too many black people. Why, that was eight. I call them my grade eight.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11:

I hired 16 people. But that's sweet 16, but my grade eight were the ones that really stood out for me and when I realized that, you know, are they going to get the right opportunities here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 11:

And if not, then maybe we need to move on, yeah for sure so. I ended up I say I quit and stayed. You know, in my mind I quit saying I know that I'm not going to be here for long, I need to do something else, yeah. And so I ended up going to work with a young lady who was doing the Black MBA magazine, and then I started my own executive search and consulting firm called PKS Executive Search.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that poor said.

Speaker 11:

One young lady, I was told, and this was before the year 2000,. And I was told that if I hired her, she was from Duke University had her MBA. If I hired her and she was from Duke University, had her MBA. If I hired her and she didn't do well, that they were going to fire me.

Speaker 1:

That's what HR told me. That's another whomp, whomp for me. Yes, yes.

Speaker 11:

And so I just got divorced.

Speaker 1:

I was a single mom yeah.

Speaker 11:

And my manager asked me do you still want to hire? I said yes, I do.

Speaker 1:

That's what's up.

Speaker 11:

And she said well then you are fooled. I said I know she's going to do well. And today she's a CTO.

Speaker 4:

If you are someone who enjoys funny pranks on others, I have some sites for you to fool friends, members or coworkers. The point is to not go overboard like D Hustle here. It is just to have fun, all right. These sites are to have fun on your friends, your family, coworkers. Do not go overboard like D Hustle, all right. Especially, don't do this at your IT guys or at work. All right, do not do this at work. So full disclosure here. The first one is it's called Update Faker. So Update Faker. Check out this site, guys. It's great. Play it on your kids or your coworkers.

Speaker 4:

You know how someone's working on a big, important project and you know they got a Windows update. So go to Update Fakeraker. Depending on if the person has a windows or mac os and you know how windows updates are going, yeah, you can't mess with a windows update. It's so important. The person's going to stare there and wait for that windows update to go and it's just going to go. It's just going to go on forever.

Speaker 4:

So go to this website, pick your flavor. If they got windows 10, windows 11, even if they have a Mac, put it in F11. That'll make it in full screen and that Windows update will go on forever and ever, guys. So yes, it is pretty slick. So there's a Mac one in there. So it's pretty cool. So there's another one in there too. If you go on there and you select Windows, you hit the enter key. It will give them the blue screen of death. Hit the enter key or even the spacebar key there's also. It will do the same thing for the mac os as well. So, whether they have a mac or windows, check this out. If you want to play a prank on your kids or your co-workers, go to update faker. It's got five different flavors on there for you and have fun, guys it's chinese company to roll out ai power sex pops.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're focused on emotional connections. How do I get one? Of those all right, it's a big industry over there in china I don't know if you guys know over there's a big market of sex, of going on all over there. So basically what he's saying, mr Lee, which is the CEO of the company, he said the new generation of sex doll, powered by AR models equipped with sensors that can react with both movement and speech, significantly enhancing users' experience by focusing on emotional connection rather than the basic conversational abilities.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 4:

Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, ladies, step your game up.

Speaker 2:

I'm just saying and these are available for men and women. Oh, okay then Wow. All right, so if you're looking, for a significant other and don't want to buy dinner interesting or go out. Yeah, you just bring out your doll him or her call her whatever you want.

Speaker 4:

Don't discriminate here.

Speaker 2:

No, and you know, have a great time and then shut the fuck up, go right back in the closet and continue your fucking day interesting big shout outs to d hustle, trusting uh technology.

Speaker 1:

We was driving around the city and all of a sudden we see this white car with all these cameras on it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you can't miss it shout out to drag war, for sure, right you can't miss these cars, and the thing is cars, it wasn't just one.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't just two. I mean, there were like crazy amount of these cars.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of them.

Speaker 1:

Autonomous vehicles. Basically nobody's driving them except the computer and AI is driving them. So we was in the city and the first time we saw it, right, we were all excited taking pictures and stuff like that. And then we see another one, see another one, see another one, see another one, and then we were driving and then we were like yo, I wonder if we can just jump in, you know, catch one of these rides because it seems like it's so accessible. So D was like yo, just pull over and, you know, check it out real quick. So I get on my phone and I didn't even go to a website or nothing, straight to the app store and I looked up the company it's waymo w-a-y-m o okay, and I'm like all right, let me go find this.

Speaker 1:

And it said waymo car. I installed it. In less than 15 minutes we were ready to ride in a car, like it was just like an uber. Wow, perfect, like perfect experience. Walk to this destination, this location. It even had us take a little scenic route through a little park for us to go pick up the car.

Speaker 1:

And while we were there standing there waiting for the car, d and I are just sitting there like dang I can't believe about to do this and before you know it, the car pulls up so smooth, just pulls right up on the corner. You got to press the button to unlock the doors open. D sat in the front first, I sat in the back and crazy were you guys scared or creeped out or anything?

Speaker 2:

I'm not not going to lie. I was nervous, I was like yo listen, I don't trust nobody. I think that's you see, bug me. Yeah, this is not going to work very well, I was nervous. I was like you know what San Francisco is way in advance.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's like you live in the future, bro.

Speaker 2:

If people trust them it is what it is, you know, yeah, but it was a good experience. I felt good about it. Would I do it again? 110, 100, um. It's just a matter of time of getting over that fear and yeah, you got it, you know.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, now who's behind this? Like that's a great question I want.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad you said that. So I was telling bobby that it felt like um, I don't know if you ever had one of those or seen these type of race car remote. Uh, you're sitting down with a monitor all the way around and you can see everything. It's uh, oh man, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I felt like somebody's at home just driving the car around and you're done because freaky yeah, yeah, it's crazy but d did say that he felt like it was driving more safer yeah, and not trying to drive aggressively, right yeah? Like it was, like safety was first for it like it would stop or pause, but it also picked up speed too yeah, when it was.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it has cameras all the way around.

Speaker 3:

That's crazy it has cameras all the way around it has something like it's spinning.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if it's like like some waves, that is detecting radar type like a radar.

Speaker 4:

But yeah, that's pretty cool, I guess. Obviously it's a leak, it's legal there and all that right. Do they care, right? That's the thing about in san francisco, people ask for forgiveness afterwards.

Speaker 3:

Yeah wow.

Speaker 1:

But I tell you, bro, there was no way that you could miss it, because it was definitely roaming around the city and then, in terms of just experience-wise, it was just like catching an Uber and the cost wasn't that expensive either.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, no, no. It is like catching an Uber, but I think we were more luxurious than everybody.

Speaker 1:

It's more like Give him a round of applause. He's saying that the luxury status was a little bit higher.

Speaker 2:

Well, when people's driving an Uber, right, are anybody taking pictures of Ubers? No, everybody was taking pictures of us.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we felt like we were superstars, exactly, Seriously.

Speaker 2:

So it's more of a luxurious, like we're superstars.

Speaker 4:

Wow. So it's like Okay, a luxurious like we're superstars.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I mean I officially felt like what it felt like or what it feels like to be famous yes, everywhere we stop people take out their phones recording and.

Speaker 7:

I'm like waving and everything.

Speaker 2:

And there's nobody on the driver's side.

Speaker 4:

No, I mean just hearing the story, I'm just like whoa, this is kind of freaky.

Speaker 2:

That's what made it cool for me After I was scared in the beginning.

Speaker 1:

I see people taking out their phones.

Speaker 2:

I feel special yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And he's sitting in the front too.

Speaker 2:

They're recording me.

Speaker 4:

I'm recording you. That's pretty funny. Yeah, so that's only a West Coast thing, because I've never heard of that down here in the East.

Speaker 1:

Coast, it in the East Coast. It probably will come later on. Yeah, it'll definitely make its way. I think it's ready.

Speaker 4:

I think, it's ready.

Speaker 1:

City-wise definitely.

Speaker 12:

It was quite interesting. It felt as though, like I think, I was in it while it was going on yeah. I remember one day I hadn't been to the office because I was always working from home. And then one day I hadn't been to the office because I was always working from home. Um, and then one day I went into the office and it felt so dark and sad yeah, I remember myself and some other colleague were just in a room like this and then having a conversation and went to one colleague of ours not black.

Speaker 12:

Um, it was just there and then he looked so sad I think he's asian and he possibly was worried about, like, his visa situation and all. Yeah, yeah, um, so it was, it was it was extremely bad. Um, I think there were so many rumors or so many things and some of them came out to be true actually, um, I remember that night where, like everybody's laptops were just like dying in front of their eyes yeah, um, and everybody was just typing and saying, oh yeah, I'm out yeah, I'm out so many things were.

Speaker 12:

It was, it was crazy. It was like rumors of war and then so many people getting killed and it was. It was just bad yeah, um, yeah um, my whole entire managerial chain was cut off like um, while I was there in the first round actually there were several rounds after maybe even five or six, I'm not sure, but in the first round I wasn't impacted.

Speaker 12:

I think the major thing that happened was that Elon started asking and saying I need people to work 80 hours every single week and all of that and I was like, yeah, sure, I mean I could do that, but then maybe it has to be my thing, I can work on your thing for 80 hours.

Speaker 12:

But also in the fact that, like I don't think I saw the vision that you see for this company, yeah even though I feel like there are a bunch of things that we could do yeah um, I think the direction in which we were actually taking it was not some way I saw it, and so when he put out the old label of choose yes or no, I didn't click on yes, I just left it. And so he told me to go and I was like, yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, hey. That's how it plays out, and the part that I really feel in terms of just you talking about it is the emotions associated with it, because people just don't know how we rode for that blue bird it was different right.

Speaker 1:

We held it at a different level in terms of our contributions and also our commitment, right? Somebody's asking us to do more for something else that y'all don't even ride like that, for it's like yo. I don't think we can keep that same momentum and I definitely want to show you respect for you know, being one of those that be like hey, I'm done, because a lot of people, like you said, were forced to be in that situation because they had visas issues, family issues, medical issues and stuff like that, um, and and a lot of people don't know what that feels like to stand for something like that and then obviously understand the results of it.

Speaker 8:

so big round of applause for him to have that experience be able to tell your story you're going to meet a lot of people in life that's going to say you know, like I'm a good person, I do this. Yeah, I'm a good person, I do this. And that's a dangerous way of living and a dangerous way of looking at life. I'm going to tell you why. Right, so one of the quickest ways you can lose everything is thinking that you can earn somebody's respect or earn somebody's grace or whatever, whatever. So I'll give you an example what I mean. Right, if somebody does a lot of things for you, that's cool, does a lot of things for you, that's cool. And you keep doing it, keep doing it. So now you think that they're a certain way because of the works that they showed you. Now you're going to look at this person like, oh, that's my man, oh, that's the homie. They looked out for me, they did this, they did that, they did works to show you something. So now, once they get 100% close to you and they got 100% access to things that you would normally keep private or whatever it is, they are now in a position to completely manipulate everything. Take everything from you and you will be like I thought they was. Yeah, you never knew them, they just knew what to do to get to you. The thing is, your value was in their works, but you never saw who they was.

Speaker 8:

In the Bible it shows you that through faith and grace are we saved. What it is is and this hit me strong if you was to ask somebody, how many lies have you ever told in your life? And then everybody be like, well, dang, like countless lies, like you know what I'm saying if you're looking at it across my life. Yeah, so do you ask them and see if they honest with themselves, um, is a liar a good person? And then it's like you have some people that would be like, well, yeah, like a liar could be a good person because you did this good thing. Good, doing a good deed or a bad deed is literally that a good deed or a bad deed.

Speaker 8:

But being a good person, that means you have to be perfect and there's only one that's perfect you're not perfect so once I realized that I wasn't a good person we were sinners that's when I realized I was free, because now I don't have to carry the burden of trying to be perfect or trying to be this good person. I can actually live my life doing the best that I can, knowing that the only reason I'm able to do anything is through the grace of God.

Speaker 4:

The story out last week where a gentleman made I think he made like 112 fake AI bands and then he also created bots where they just basically were streaming the music off of the fake ai bands and he ended up making about 10 million dollars 10 million dollars shout out to that.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I'm just trying to find out.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, shout out to him. I was just trying to find out what he did illegally, but he created the bots to boost his sales.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

He put us up on game right.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so, but then again, I mean, don't Isn't there like always, like you know, little thing there On certain artists using bots and stuff like that. You know whether it's Meg Thee Stallion, or if it's Drake or Kendrick, I mean you know.

Speaker 1:

I mean Because.

Speaker 4:

Spotify likes to crack down on that Because it is illegal. You're not supposed to use bots, but we know the music industry does do that to kind of boost their artists up.

Speaker 2:

So but I'm just trying to understand what this gentleman did wrong um, the bots weren't real and, uh, I guess he got caught on.

Speaker 1:

He got caught, michael smith is his name 10 million dollars in royalty from apple music, spotify and other podcasts are posting. Ai shout out to him pretty brilliant idea, idea, yeah, brilliant, great concept.

Speaker 2:

$10 million the only difference is that he's not a star, that's true, those bands were not stars either. Those bands are not stars and they haven't seen him perform once.

Speaker 1:

Not once, not once.

Speaker 4:

He got caught up. Now let's discuss this. Was it the band's that's deaths illegal, or was it the bots? What did he do wrong?

Speaker 2:

I think it was the bots. Yeah, me too I agree, you can make music, everybody's making music right now with AI and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

But to boost up to this, because let's be realistic here when you put something online, it's all about how many people look Facts, Correct and likes yeah, yeah, it's all about how many people look Facts and likes yeah, yeah, in the booth. So he had to get. How many bots did he do? He had to do Thousands, thousands of bots, maybe two grand Two thousand bots, yeah, yeah, to boost it up. Yeah, I think he did. He just got caught. Yeah, I mean, he started this From when I was reading Since 2019.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, actually it's ten,000 active bots I'm going to have to laugh at that if he would have 5,000, he might have been able to just slide through. I might make it another year, but man, I agree with D.

Speaker 1:

I think it's definitely the part where the bots themselves are hitting and messing with the numbers. And then they're getting paid for that because technically, let's say, those bots cost him a dollar. A bot, that's $10,000, right. But that $10,000 flipped up and made $10 million, right.

Speaker 2:

That's a good flip right there. I think that happens to everybody. We got too happy. Yeah yeah, money, happy, you know, the year was coming in Next year, said I need a freaking Lamborghini Next year. After that I need a boat. I need more, I need more views.

Speaker 1:

All I need is more. I ain't got caught up. That's exactly. That's crazy, you know.

Speaker 4:

Bots are used on A lot of different.

Speaker 8:

Platforms Right.

Speaker 4:

Whether it's Twitter or Instagram, I mean come on. Do these people Like, really have the followers? They really have the followers they really have. I guess because they're not getting monetized.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, they're making money. Exactly, it's fine, yeah, I mean, it is kind of like if you're not getting paid for it.

Speaker 4:

They don't care.

Speaker 1:

They don't care, okay, but if you think about, I think YouTube has bots too, don't you? Think so a YouTube channel with 100,000 people in there, there has to be some bots in there, right Well?

Speaker 4:

yeah, I mean depending on how fast their 100,000 subscribers are. So yeah. Yeah, but yeah no, it's just curious, interesting.

Speaker 13:

Yeah, yeah. And I had a dream that I was working for Apple. I had a dream that I was working for Apple and I was shocked because, first of all, I was so focused on medicine I had never even thought about technology at all, not because I didn't think I could do it, but just because I was like that has nothing to do with me. Like minding my own business, staying in my lane. But you got a taste of that.

Speaker 1:

Python. I sure did, does your?

Speaker 2:

mom know my mom Because? No, my mom, because the first thing they want to do are you going to be a doctor, a? Lawyer you know all that stuff, I'm telling you, I'm telling you so for her like it's so funny you said that.

Speaker 13:

So three things for her. She was like either medicine, either law, or either becoming an engineer and obviously being in New York, civil engineering, architecture, is super huge.

Speaker 13:

So I was the kid that she assigned medicine I was really good at mathematics and science anyway, ie my degree, but moving along strong.

Speaker 13:

So anyhow, yeah, went online to LinkedIn, was trying to figure out who I knew at the time that I worked at Apple, and a good friend of mine, who I just recently graduated, worked at the store and I was like, hey, you know, I think I want to work here. I actually started my journey in retail FYI. If you guys didn't know that and want to like work here, yeah, um, I actually started my journey in retail fyi, if you guys didn't know that. And so she was like, hey, I can totally uh refer you. And literally after she referred me, I think, a week later I heard back from a recruiter and, um, five weeks later, after five rounds of interviews, I got the job. The strategy was you can measure success by helping people get into tech, helping the individuals who never knew that six figures was attainable and then from there seeing that it's okay to also have work-life balance, yeah, yeah so that's what it was for me.

Speaker 13:

So, yeah, took the time in May 2020 was like hey, you know, hey, those who are interested in getting into tech, feel free to you know, use my LinkedIn or my calendar link and I'm happy to you know, provide you with free you know service. Again, I was like Lord'm just going to use this as a way to serve the people.

Speaker 8:

That's how it became what it was Big shout-outs.

Speaker 13:

I'm just again. Very grateful for where it has come to be. Thanks for the support, bobby and the community. From there we were able to help about 400 plus people get into tech with making six-figure salaries. Plus, I think, total compensation is around $27 million to $30 million in total compensation.

Speaker 1:

Let's take a pause right there. Can you repeat that number again? How much money have you collectively been able to help people get?

Speaker 13:

Yes, so between $27 and 30 million dollars in total compensation so salary sign-on bonuses and also stock options.

Speaker 1:

That's what's up beautiful.

Speaker 1:

That's what's up. One of the things that we have as a challenge as software engineers, especially when working on the internet, is raymond and d hustle may not be in my region. They might be on the other side of the world. So how do I share code with you? All is using a version control system like Git, where I can have a copy on my laptop, share it to D-Hustle, d-hustle has his copy, raymond has his copy, and then we're working collectively to merge our changes together. It's definitely a way for you to manage history, like what did Bobby change, what did D-Hustle change but also being able to tie that into deployment systems so that systems and software can automatically be updated as new code is being merged into this version control system. Another thing that I like to also mention about version control systems is there is a way that you can have a centralized repository where everybody can fetch and get the latest copy. This is on something called github. Y'all heard of github before. Right, yes, and I'm sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 2:

Excuse my dull moment here.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you can explain no, go ahead d because so get and github is not the same thing that's a great question. So so Git is the tool, github is the platform. Let's go.

Speaker 10:

One of my favorite movies is Black Panther, but maybe not for the reason that people think, if you look at the movie and think about this next time you look at the movie, killmonger was physically bigger and stronger than Black Panther. T'challa won because he listened to the women in his life. Facts he had a team. Killmonger had no team. Black Panther had a team. That's the difference in the story. He had women in his life who advocated for him when he couldn't fight for himself.

Speaker 1:

Facts.

Speaker 10:

And if that's not a metaphor for us as men to listen and insight that comes from non-traditional sources. I don't know what it is. So what I say to some of the guys I mentor is listening to your wife doesn't make you less of a man, but not listening to your wife can make you a less successful man.

Speaker 1:

Ooh, giving that a gem right there, For sure 100%.

Speaker 10:

There's no one in your life besides maybe your mama.

Speaker 2:

Say it again, because sometimes people don't listen. Yeah, so we're running back.

Speaker 10:

So listening to your wife doesn't make you less of a man, but not listening to your wife may make you a less successful man.

Speaker 3:

She can see some things that you can't.

Speaker 10:

And she may have insight into things, but, like outside of maybe your mom, who else is there that's as aligned with your success as your wife?

Speaker 1:

100% 100%, because we're moving together. I go left, we go left.

Speaker 3:

I go right, we go right Right.

Speaker 1:

And at the end of the day, uh, mindset wise. Uh, my wife and I honor her to to the core because, uh, I tell a lot of people like when I walk into a room she sees you before I even see you type stuff right it's just mindset wise is that um it's, it's a collective that her and I have created, and when we move, we move together.

Speaker 9:

So I'll prophesy. So leadership came to me at one point and said hey, marlon, we just got access to this tool called opening. I you know um early access right and everything, and so like, uh, they was like hey, you know, do you think you know you can use this tool to help us write grants faster? On our profit side, and so, going back to that, I'm like yeah, sure, I know I figured it out.

Speaker 7:

Having no clue what to do.

Speaker 3:

I got it.

Speaker 9:

So I told him this is why I like actually, it's probably like we're on this time. We know the time when it's like late in the year. And so I told him I said, look, don't expect any results to like end of the year. I figured it out in a weekend. Oh, that's what's up. So essentially, man, what we ended up building was one of the first AI grant writers on top of GBT-3. That's what's up. And so GBT-3 had launched and everything, and so we figured it out and built some stuff around it. At that time period it was definitely private, it was private beta, and yet they was approving you know, I don't know a couple hundred people a month, whatever it may be.

Speaker 9:

And so at that time, opening out was so small you can literally like email specific engineers yeah, yeah and talk to them about what you're building and what you're working on, what you're trying to figure it out and everything. And so, like the biggest transition when we was building, you know this AI grant writer, you know we basically you had to like store, you know a database and everything. So now it's like a vector database, yeah, and so you know, at the time, you know, I think I think vector database was coming up, but I just wasn't familiar with it. So you had to put all your documents in a JSON lines lines file and I was like what the hell is json lines?

Speaker 9:

like I know what json is yeah I was like what json lines is, and so it's so tedious and everything, and so essentially it's json, but everything but just like line by line, by line, by line by line yeah everything, and so it makes the embedding process easier yeah, well, which is the future of vector databases?

Speaker 9:

right, yeah, yeah right and so it makes the embedding process easier to read and everything it's going to go through and so so, yeah, man, so like once I, once we built in and kind of understand, I understand the foundations of it and how it reads and how it understands and how it documents you know documents and everything like that. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I see what this is. And so the day chachi to be, the day, I saw chachi um chachi on gpt, I probably like saw, like the first description, the first line. I was like, oh, I know exactly what this is oh you peep game quick.

Speaker 1:

I know exactly what this is. Yeah, yeah and so.

Speaker 9:

So from there, man, you know, I think the rest of the world was like oh, this is interesting, and I just had the privilege of kind of like being into it and stuff already, and and so from there, man, I started teaching building.

Speaker 4:

It didn't know that. Um, if you make music with AI, you cannot copyright it.

Speaker 3:

Ooh, it's free.

Speaker 4:

So if you make any type of music with AI, so it is not free. You have to make the lyrics off of your brain that is copyrighted, so I thought that was interesting so explain that a little bit more so I don't know if you guys remember, with the kendrick lamar and yeah uh, drake battle. There was a guy that went ahead and made fun of drake. He made the song called bbl drizzy ah, yes, I remember that took off.

Speaker 4:

He made that with ai so he cannot copyright that. A bunch of people spend off of it and made their own versions of it yeah so apparently he can only make money off the lyrics, but the actual song is open to anyone, so that was interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's the thing with ai is that they're going to be so many new regulations and ways that we're going to have to learn how to develop.

Speaker 4:

But my question is would you still listen to the song if it's created by AI? Yeah, I don't know. I feel some type of way about that.

Speaker 1:

But let me ask you this Do you want to be notified if it is, or would you just not to be notified at all?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, I'm not checking for an. Ai artist, I mean, I mean. Yeah, I don't know, I feel weird about that now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So Raymond Haven't gotten onto that board yet.

Speaker 2:

Here's the thing why we we have to say Is AI generated? If not, so let's say, if I put out some music, and You're gonna have a A different point of perspective If it's me. Or or if I tell you, hey, it's AI. If you say it's me, ah nah, you can't do the crap by yourself. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. Or if it's AI, oh my god, you still can't do the crap by yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's uh, but if I give it to you, what I've seen is AI and you like. Oh man, you did good yeah yeah, yeah, heads up, it's ai, and then is your opinion gonna change after that?

Speaker 1:

oh, I mean, I know raymond's opinion. Yeah, definitely, we know raymond's opinion.

Speaker 2:

I can't. It's ai man. I thought he was the man. That's not.

Speaker 1:

Let me let me give you the soon as he hears that it's's a rap, there goes all the SoundCloud rappers I mean me. I'm just looking forward to the quality of music is going to take another leap, in my opinion, because of the lyrics that are going to be generated, versus what we're listening to right now, Because music right now is too much mumble rap, like D was saying, but also just too much adult-type stuff. They're always talking about smashing and stuff like that and I'm like yo do y'all hear what y'all are saying? Are these lyrics really conscious? I'm hoping that AI brings back conscious rapping. I don't know, We'll see.

Speaker 2:

We'll see what happens. We'll see.

Speaker 1:

We'll see what happens. We'll see what advice would you have for the next generation of you know like-minded people that were at Brown or you know in high school, interested in computer science? What advice would you give them in terms of getting into the?

Speaker 3:

field now? Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like one big thing that we kind of miss with remote is just people like relationships like running to bobby d at the office, you know what I'm saying like yeah, I really miss that and I would say keep in contact with your network. Like one thing that happened this year was that I was feeling like I really missed my coworkers from Twitter.

Speaker 5:

And.

Speaker 3:

I was like. My friend was like why don't you just reach out to them? And everyone was really happy to like meet up with me or Zoom with me. They missed me too. So my first advice is definitely keep in contact with your network. Just meet up with people for coffee. Your network is going to be really helpful in getting you jobs and just learning things, and also just having people to give you advice is huge yeah um, I think another thing is along with that uh, find mentors.

Speaker 3:

It's harder in the remote world we live in now to find mentors, like I just met you at nesBE. I met Chris Coco around the office. I met Susan around the office. These are just people I had random encounters with, but we don't have as many random encounters now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so for sure.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, reach out to people, see if they'll mentor you.

Speaker 1:

Like, don't be afraid to put yourself out there, but mentors are really important and yeah, it's a little hard to find them now, but they're out there and they want a mentor yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, are actually working on a project where we're building data centers, or we're talking about designing data centers by re-utilizing some older buildings, because you know there's a lot of vacant buildings in all of these cities and why not convert some of these buildings into data centers?

Speaker 1:

And if you're not familiar with the data center, look at the links below. We'll have access to that. But these data centers are the centralized place where we host and put computers in there, but not just a regular data center on the edge of the internet, but let's make it an AI edge data center, something that we potentially could have AI workload running in a city rather than running in these big old data centers. Or I just read an article about XAI having, you know this massive computing with thousands of GPUs. Why not just spread them out across the country or across the world into smaller locations so that people in those areas can access it?

Speaker 2:

Data centers, their room or facility has to be extremely cold.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, can access it. Data centers, their room or facility has to be extremely cold. Yeah, yeah. So the one of the cool things about um data center designs is, um you can take advantage of, uh like isolating that cool or cooling the whole building, and when you're cooling the whole building, it's kind of so inefficient, right? Um, and just for those that are um wondering about what a data center is, just think of a data center as like a warehouse, um, a warehouse full with computers from the floor to the ceiling, and if you're cooling that whole building, you have a lot of space that's not being used in terms of computing resources, from the ceiling to the top of the rack. But this idea is taking it into a smaller footprint and possibly using something called liquid cooling. Have you heard of liquid cooling?

Speaker 11:

yet yeah.

Speaker 1:

So liquid cooling is something that's getting even more popular with AI, with the type of chips that they're developing, but CPU liquid cooling too, because the other day I watched this video a gaming computer remember yeah, I was going to say that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was going to say that gaming computers had those.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, gaming computers are coming out with liquid cooling in them, which is crazy. They them. Which is crazy. They literally have a radiator. They literally have a, a water line that goes directly to the cpu and then a water line that goes back and, just like in a car, it flows right through as it getting more hotter. They had that for a while actually some people don't trust it yeah yeah, because any leak?

Speaker 1:

yeah, the whole thing is a wrap. Yeah, well, water and electricity don't go together, right, or the water and electronics in general, um, but this idea of these data centers uh, these ai data centers are going to be smaller, um does require less amount of cooling, less amount of space, and that's why this proposal is really focusing on, you know, buildings that are either, you know, vacant nobody's living in there or using using it for business, um, and just building on top of them like a lego set or a tetra, tetra set of data center resources, such as GPUs for AI. So, yeah, if you are interested in learning a little bit more about this project, and definitely if you are an investor or you want to contribute either time or money right, one of the two come and holler us here at the Tech Hustle and we're definitely going to enlighten you.

Speaker 1:

This is episode number 50 kids, 50, 50. Can you believe it? What's up? Raymond? Raymond, don't call him, he's 50 now, he's that old Raymond. Don't call him Ray Ray. What up player? What's? Up morning, morning, morning, my guy D hustle, what up player. What, oh man, can you believe we got to episode 50? Yes man, we've been recording for a minute. What did you say? I have a fun fact.

Speaker 4:

What's up? We're on episode 50. I don't know if you guys know this, but most podcasts fail within the first 15 episodes.

Speaker 1:

First 15 episodes first 15 episodes.

Speaker 4:

Yes, they don't even last a year. I just found that out a few weeks ago that's what's up not saying we succeeded, but we did make it to 50, give us a big round of applause.

Speaker 1:

Come on now. We got to make sure we give a big, big round of applause. So we're beating the statistics, um, and we're on episode 50. Uh, we've been at it for at least two years, three years now total. Um, I would say we start off with twitter spaces, right, um, and then we move to audio only has it been longer than that?

Speaker 4:

it feels like it's been it has right, it feels a little bit longer well, we have two years no, I think it's three years.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, because we started off with twitter spaces first, um, and then we did season two, all audio, um. So if you haven't seen season two or heard of season two, it's on spotify and all platforms. It's audio only. And then for season three, which, getting this to our point now, uh, we stepped it up a little bit and obviously turned on the camera so you can see what we look like and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

But we got a special special guest for us today, uh, somebody that's been supporting the show since day one, day one. If y'all been watching our show, you know that um, we have had a segment where we shout out our sponsors throughout the whole show. Um, and we have the one and only marvelous creation. Bring her to the stage. Big round of applause. Welcome to the stage. Marvelous creation, aka marlene to the stage. Marvelous creation, aka welcome. Marlene, also known as my love. What's up, baby? Say hi to everybody, hello, everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome. And this afternoon, what we're going to do is have a quick conversation with you about marvelous creations and your contributions to our community, our family and your company and all the amazing things that you've been doing. So give us a quick introduction yourself. Tell us what's your name, where you're from and how you know the Tech Hustle.

Speaker 7:

So my name is Marlene from Marvelous Creation and. I'm Bobby DFL's wife.

Speaker 1:

Shout out to that 18 years, 18 years, 18 years.

Speaker 7:

And I'm D Hustle's sister Biggest shout out right there. In California I also did Cake for Kids. It was an organization that did cakes for foster kids in the hospitals and I really enjoyed doing that because the kids all love cakes and seeing the design that you make and they get all happy we're about to close it out, fellas, can y'all believe episode 50?

Speaker 2:

man.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait for next year. 2025 is right around the corner. I hope you all are getting your plans lined up. I hope y'all are reflecting on 2024 and all the great things you do. And one thing that I want to say real quick if you bring the music down real quick is I want to give a few big thank yous.

Speaker 1:

First of all, let's get a big round of applause for my guy Raymond don't call him Ray Ray. Thank you so much for holding it down, my brother, bringing your nuggets, being available and you know, and talking to the camera and saying hi to the people and always being yourself. So we very much appreciate it. And don't forget my right-hand man, my guy D-Hustle. I'm holding it down, my guy D-Hustle holding it down, as always, all of 2024, traveling the country with me, visiting and featuring on Backstage with Bobby D, also holding it down here at the podcast, and all the operation stuff that we got going on here at the Tech Hustle. I appreciate you, my brother. Thank you so much for all that you do, my man. I really do.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

And a big round of applause back to you again. Also, there's two more names that I want to mention real quick Jasmine, jasmine Wright, jasmine. Jasmine writes big shout out to jasmine right as man. Uh, she's holding it down on our newsletter side of the table. Uh, we are coming out with our next final episode of our newsletter for this year, so I want y'all to make sure y'all tune in and check it out. And then I want to give a big shout outs to our video guy. What's his name again? Um, raham, raham, my guy over in nigeria, overseas, my man.

Speaker 1:

Um very much appreciate all the production that you're doing. We really do appreciate all the new pop-ups and things that we have going on in our video and if you don't see the like and subscribe button, press it now. Thank you so much for your continued support here at the Tech Hustle and if I forgot your name and if I missed you, definitely much respect to you and thank you all so much for holding us down for this whole year. We're going to keep it going for 2025. Any last words, Raymond.

Speaker 4:

Everybody stay safe. Have a good year. See you in 2025. That's what's up. That's what's up. My guy D Hustle what's up player.

Speaker 2:

First of all, I want to thank everybody. I want to thank my man, Raymond. Don't call me Ray Ray, Even though in his discourse it says Ray Ray.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, so I'm confusing.

Speaker 2:

I also want to thank him also for uh losing his bet that he has to give me some uh lunch. He hasn't facts.

Speaker 1:

Facts, because he got put down in the d league. Not even he's still playing, he's down to the d league also want to give him a big shout out also.

Speaker 2:

He's got a lot of great nuggets. Ladies and gentlemen, if you guys are not put onto the sit.

Speaker 2:

He's got a lot of good stuff. Uh, in case he don't know, he got got burner phones. So, uh, last but not least, I was special Thank out to my man, Um, Bobby D. Without him, uh, my, my one of my right hand man's uh, without him, I wouldn't know where, where I'd be right about now. Um, thank you for giving me the opportunity and having me here and being on the podcast being part of his love and his journey. And also happy holidays from us, from the Tech Hustle. Much love to you guys and see you next year.

Speaker 1:

Roger that. Turn that music back up. Play up. All right, y'all. Thank y'all so much for tuning in. We're at episode 50. We're at the end of the year. This is our last recording. We still got some more stuff coming out, so don't think that we ain't going to be publishing. But I want to say once again, thank y'all for being a part of this community. A big shout out to our almost 3,000 followers on YouTube. Give them a big round of applause for our followers on YouTube. Spotify. We're running up numbers. Our newsletter is running up numbers. Our community members. Give a big shout out to our community members for holding us down. We got a new year coming up with new ideas and different things that we'll be working on. If you're not already following, subscribe, tell your friends about us, tell your community about us, because we're really out here changing minds, changing lives. And, yeah, we'll see y'all next year, 2025. Peace.