Joe Gulesserian: AI and The Art of Competitive Advantage

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County living presents conversations with Rich Bennett. I have a good time! 

You're not going to show up! [Laughter] I have a good watch. It's kind of a few seconds of hours of work. Just don't have a good watch. No, no, no, it's not. 

Rich Bennett 0:27
I have Joe Golasere in back here. Where are you going to talk about more about AI? Maybe some other things you never know. Joe, first of all, welcome, man. Tell me what is new in the world? 

Joe Gulesserian 0:45
Well, thank you, Rich, for having me on your show again. It's a pleasure to be 

Rich Bennett 0:50
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 0:50
back on. And I know we had lots of fun and very interesting perspectives on the last show. So what's new to the world? Well, that's a heavy-duty question. But I'll tell you, I believe we're going to talk about AI in the art of competitive advantage today. And that really ties in with what's new to the world because people turned around and go, "I'm going to invent a gadget or an idea I have or a software I have." And it could be imitated so quickly. It's called the invitation gap. You're not getting competitive advantage by necessarily what's new in the world, unless you're Eastman Kodak. 

Rich Bennett 1:29
Uh-huh. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:29
And you have a patent or if you're Xerox. But for example, I'll give you examples what was new to the world. The jet engine was new to the world. And that was invented by Germany in the Waning Daces of the Second World War. And the jet engine was later created as a passenger plane on the British, the British did under the comet. And it was unreliable, lots of accidents. And the Americans created the Boeing series, which gave jet engines reliability and safety. Yeah, the commas were crashing. Yeah. But you know, if the plane's crashed, but you've already collected the money. 

Rich Bennett 2:06
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 2:07
You know, that's the important thing. You know, that's best fed though. But not seriously, seriousness. But the other one that's really what's new to the world is computers. And that's not new now. But, and I pronounced this right, ABC at TANASOPH was invented 1938. That was the first functional computer that we, 

Rich Bennett 2:31
1938. 

Joe Gulesserian 2:31
New about. And we might have 

Rich Bennett 2:33
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 2:33
had this conversation, 1938. It was like, it was a lab computer. 

Rich Bennett 2:38
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 2:38
It's probably in the Smithsonian Museum now. It was American. It was part of what the term, well, determined in the last century, especially at beginning was the term American know how, because you had manufacturing. When she had manufacturing, you have know how is the Chinese are getting a lot of know how. And. So I mean, what also is new was the CNC machine to the world. And that was computer numerically controlled manufacturing system where. Think about a machine shop on the lathe. All those things being done 10 times the speed of a human that was invented in the 1950s. Industrial robots was new to the world in the 1950s during this all during the third industrial revolution where we started playing around with electronics. And then believe it or not, the term artificial intelligence is not a new term that was invented 1966. It was coined. 

So that's what was new to the world. 

What's new to the world now. Debates not new, lots of debate going on disagreement. That's not new. But businesses then take. And you know, what was new 

Rich Bennett 3:55
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 3:55
back then is was Eastman code code act. Of course, we'll talk about that changed the world certain inventions certain. Business brands and things and so forth change the world. 

Television was relatively new. In the United States in the late 1940s early 50s relatively even I think was the bare broadcasting network in the United States originally came up with it. But nothing came close to American television during its advent years in the late 1940s the shows. At selve were talking about earlier on and so forth. So. If you allow me, I'm going to go through some competitive strategy. You know, and I'm bringing up stuff that you know, you people turn around to go, yeah, I've got a competitive advantage and they really haven't really thought it through. Most most business schools teach it some don't some you pick up on your own. But you see Really, in competitive strategy, uh, on a brand or business strategy level, there's the prospector, the defender, the analyzer, and the reactor. So these 

Rich Bennett 5:11
OK. 

Joe Gulesserian 5:11
are four cartoon characters, let's say there's them like that, okay? And, uh,for  example, I'm going to give you an example of a podcast, uh, prospector, 

Rich Bennett 5:21
mm-hmm. 

Joe Gulesserian 5:23
I know they're obviously, and, uh, Gemini, so there are prospectors in the industry. They're not analyzers. They're not reactors. They can become reactors, uh, rich, uh, very quickly. But they're not initially reactors. They're new to the world, relatively, um, and who has become a prospector, who is really first an analyzer, is deep seeking China. Because I think they made, um, AI programs, five cents, six cents on the dollar. Compared to the American companies. Um, so yeah. And you can see, I'll give you an example of deep seek, uh, the Chinese use it. I'm, because 

Rich Bennett 6:05
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 6:05
I get emails from China, b what I do for a living, and, you know, you can see authentic emails on there. They go stuff. Hi, you'll say Mr. Joe or Joe or whatever, they're really kind. Um, now they're coming up and saying, we know your brand touch points. And we can help with our formulations of your cosmetic brand. This is all AI generated, right? I'm so busy. I didn't tell the guy be interested in dealing with you. But, you know, can you kind of like, uh, stop sending, you know, template crap to me. You know, um, so I, I'm getting a little bit off topic there. But, uh, again, Eastman Codak was a prospector, absolutely, uh, one of a kind. And I didn't say they invented photography, but back in the 1800s, you needed to get a, like a hood, a professional photographer. It was a complex strategy. The gift that Eastman Codak gave to the world was they let us see ourselves. In the world for the first time, as a people, 

Rich Bennett 7:09
as okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 7:09
Sure as a 

Rich Bennett 7:10
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 7:10
civilization. You could take pictures. Yeah. So you could develop the film. They're very dependable films. They're very good films. Um, I would say Instagram is a prospector. Um, take talk. Yeah. So it's a prospector because now it sells self, what is Instagram sell? Really? I got to tell the story of my life, self gratification and digital addiction. That's what they're selling. Now, there's some very interesting stuff on there. Um, you can create fake wars, fake stock market crashes. We'll get into that stuff. And I did a, uh, I produced a 23 minutes short documentary on AI in the future of propaganda. But you can, you know, when I hear stuff on Instagram, there's some really good stuff. But, but scrolling is all digital addiction. The other one is tick talk and another form again. People, um, self gratifying themselves. Um, we're talking about wrestling. There's male and female versions of Ric Flair, right? And the only thing missing is the Rolex watch. And so they're self gratifying themselves. They're, self gratification. Now there's interesting stuff on there. I'm not knocking on both these platforms. So now you've got, um, and I'll try and keep my opinions to myself. You got self gratification. They're on TikTok and Instagram. And this makes up for 

Rich Bennett 8:38
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 8:38
Lack of accomplishment, right? So if I self gratify myself, that that'll be in lieu of a comp, I confuse the, I confuse the two. That's what's going on now. They're getting confused. The other one that's new to the world is, is he didn't come up in an event satellites. He didn't invent space ships. But that would say I wouldn't say it's new to the world, but it's a prospector as a business strategy. 

Rich Bennett 9:00
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:00
And that's always been Elon Musk. He prospects for new things. He prospects. You don't have to be new to the world. I kind of went back and forth. There's very little new to the world. 

the film is we knew at Edison did film like motion film. At one point, it could be argued that Netflix was a prospector, well, a prospector. And away we go, you can ask me something. I got to feel you're 

Rich Bennett 9:31
No, 

Joe Gulesserian 9:31
going to ask. You're 

Rich Bennett 9:31
no, no, 

Joe Gulesserian 9:32
thinking, 

Rich Bennett 9:32
no, no, because when 

Joe Gulesserian 9:32
I'm in trouble. 

Rich Bennett 9:33
Flex. And I can't 

Joe Gulesserian 9:34
I 

Rich Bennett 9:34
remember. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:34
can tell your thing 

Rich Bennett 9:35
if it was, the Netflix originally start out as the, you know, like the boxes you see at shoppersenters where you can rent DVDs from 

Joe Gulesserian 9:51
here. Are you saying like blockbuster?

Rich Bennett 9:53
Torin and blockbuster. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:54
Yeah . Remember blockbuster. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 9:57
No, 

Joe Gulesserian 9:58
bomb. 

Rich Bennett 9:58
it 

Joe Gulesserian 9:58
I don't know exactly. 

Rich Bennett 9:59
was 

Joe Gulesserian 10:00
I'm 

Rich Bennett 10:00
that 

Joe Gulesserian 10:00
not 

Rich Bennett 10:00
was 

Joe Gulesserian 10:00
sure. 

Rich Bennett 10:00
red 

Joe Gulesserian 10:00
I'd have to look that up. 

Rich Bennett 10:03
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 10:05
box. Yeah. So Netflix changed the way we see motion 

Rich Bennett 10:08
red 

Joe Gulesserian 10:08
pictures and videos and you know, you don't have to, in the old days, we bought the videos, we rented the videos. I had my collection of videos. So Netflix changed that. They were a prospector and this brings us how prospectors and not other can become defenders. You can argue now that perhaps Netflix is a defender and they're defending their business against Amazon Prime, YouTube movies, what else are they, what else is up there? 

Rich Bennett 10:41
HBO Mac 

Joe Gulesserian 10:42
against HBO against Paramount. Some of the, yeah, yeah, 

Rich Bennett 10:45
Disney. 

Joe Gulesserian 10:46
so there's really some of the ones say Disney. Yeah. So they're defending. I would say, you know, if they're making their own movies but I would say they're defending primarily against Amazon Prime. Those two are going in and then you can download and buy four, you can, you know, for four bucks, five bucks, you're buying a video. I want to watch your breakfast at Tiffany's. I want to 

Rich Bennett 11:10
Yes, 

Joe Gulesserian 11:10
watch some of those classics that you can't always get a masterpiece with, I think it was Katherine Hepburn. She just the phenomenal George Papard was in there. There's certain movie stars that you look at them and you're just enamored how good they act and the charisma and they capture that moment. So anyways, that was one of them. But a defender would say, I would say and argue, 

in the 1950s, US car companies were prospectors, General Motors, Chrysler, Imperial, Cadillac, Lincoln, the 57, Mark II. Even in the '60s, the 1969 tornado, '68 Thunderbird. So they, it was the golden age of automobiles. I'm not going to get into the muscle cars. 

Rich Bennett 12:00
brother 

Joe Gulesserian 12:01
My won. 

Rich Bennett 12:02
Because I'll be crying. 

Joe Gulesserian 12:05
But it was a yeah. And you know, 

Rich Bennett 12:09
yeah. Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 12:09
the Cadillac was a standard of the world. And one of the reasons Cadillac became the standard of the world was the person who bought it in around 1918-20s, watched you documentary on it. In the old days, if you had a luxury car and a part broke down, you went to a craftsman to make a new part that could take weeks. Your car was out. What Cadillac did is made precision replacement parts out of the phenomenal-- 

Rich Bennett 12:39
I did not 

Joe Gulesserian 12:39
--machine 

Rich Bennett 12:39
learn. 

Joe Gulesserian 12:40
shop. Yeah. And that's how Cadillac became the world, they used to term the world standard. Now in the '70s, they put Coca-Cola cans in between the doors and the assembly line. People went, you know, they bought Cadillac. They went to the dealers, sprinkles, it's rattling in the door. They opened up and they got popcorns inside the The doors. But I would say, General Motors, I would say, definitely Sallantis Chrysler are reactors today. They react react. They innovate in prospect. Their Cadillacs are quite good. The new ones. But I'm talking about Ford is a reactor, in a sense. They got 

Rich Bennett 13:19
cup. 

Joe Gulesserian 13:19
the F-150. The best selling pickup truck, the best selling vehicle, and the story in North America. But the issues, they don't have sedans and the Japanese have sedans. And what went from being a prospector, the American car companies, was the Japanese who were masterful at being analyzers. They went from analyzers to-- I wouldn't call them prospectors, but they went, they 

Rich Bennett 13:48
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 13:48
became really analyzers. They analyzed what was wrong with British cars, the Austin Mini. And the Austin Mini, you know today is a Honda Civic. The father and the mother of the-- of the Honda Civic is the Austin Mini. They made it more reliable, lower cost, dependable, and the Austin Mini was a masterpiece in engineering and design in its day. But so the Japanese used analytics. When they came up and they started taking on the Germans and Americans and luxury cars with Lexus infinity, 

Rich Bennett 14:28
and 

Joe Gulesserian 14:29
the one that Honda has, their division too, accurate my apologies. What they did is they sat down and dealerships videotape what part of what they looked at the most people did. They interviewed clients, potential customers. They paid the gazillion dollars of marketing to interview what people looked for in the luxury car and then they built it. And nobody-- they went up the food chain. When the Japanese cars came up, everybody 

Rich Bennett 14:58
they 

Joe Gulesserian 14:58
laughed 

Rich Bennett 14:58
got 

Joe Gulesserian 14:58
at 

Rich Bennett 14:58
it. 

Joe Gulesserian 14:58
them and In the 1960s, Datsun, early '70s, they go, "No way. You know what? You couldn't be American and drive a small car. It would 

Rich Bennett 15:08
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 15:08
insinuate you were not successful." And, uh, Anyways, so those, that's an example. I kind of jumped the gun a bit as an analyzer. And the Japanese are the masters at it. Now the Chinese have become that 

Rich Bennett 15:22
yep. 

Joe Gulesserian 15:22
way. South Korea has become that way. The South Koreans, if, um, South Koreans, analyze the flat screen business and they own so much as Samsung and LG for TVs. They, they own so much of that market. 

Yeah, LG, especially their OLED technology, which is like if you watch 

Rich Bennett 15:42
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 15:43
television or now I watch my YouTube and Netflix and so forth, on, on a television screen, um, phenomenal colors. Um, and the OLED technology was developed by Kodak and when they got into financial 

Rich Bennett 15:59
I'll be 

Joe Gulesserian 15:59
trouble, they 

Rich Bennett 15:59
darned. 

Joe Gulesserian 15:59
sold it. 

Yeah. Yeah, and, and because Kodak owned, they owned the, you know, they, they were focused companies. They owned them in Fuji, but primarily Kodak owned the, the film business that you, you, you made your pictures. You took pictures, your film, you went to Kodak. They love that business and, and it's worth telling the story rich, um, um, that I believe the, the, the, the gentleman's name. I'll give it, it'll come to my mind. He was the engineer, um, at Kodak, Sassoon was his last name. I think it's in the New York, Greater New York City area. He came up with Kodak and he introduced a digital, a digital, uh, environment, saying we can take pictures and produce and digitally put them on a clunky 1978 monitor on a television, like a computer monitor, showed it to the staff at Kodak, but they're so busy making money just like Xerox was with, um, um, photocopier. So you and I talking about them earlier that they go, eh, we don't need this. Nobody would, nobody would look at their films on, on, on a computer. We're, you know, we've been doing this since for almost 80, 100 years, we're going to continue. They stuck their nose up at it and when the market shifted, when consumer tastes shifted when technology shifted, Kodak just could not reinvent itself, but they are the inventors of digital, um, yeah, like digital picture technology and they threw it right under the bus. 

Rich Bennett 17:37
Kig and herself 

Joe Gulesserian 17:39
and um, and uh, 

yeah, yeah, and so I wrote a lot about this in my book, The Girl of Guide for Entrepreneurs, just this idea of the strategy. Just so I give entrepreneurs, ground some very experienced entrepreneurs, some that are coming out of school. I, I mentor a lot of kids, you know, they're in school and, you know, they're getting their hard drives reform 

Rich Bennett 18:00
it. 

Joe Gulesserian 18:00
at 

Rich Bennett 18:01
Mm-hmm, 

Joe Gulesserian 18:01
cities and so forth. And so I kind of like, I really enjoy it. And um, Um, 

Rich Bennett 18:07
um, yes, 

Joe Gulesserian 18:08
because they need a lot of help today, um, more so than I even did. It's, it just a different world than the one I, it's not as simple. Um, and, uh, what's, what's is bad? What's bad is good. It's everything's upside down, but I'm not going to change the world. So the Japanese are great analyzers. Uh, a couple that come to mind here, off me is some of the Chinese products. They didn't come up with the EV car. Um, but um, they're analyzing what for chips, they're analyzing AI. Um, I'll give you another example, um, where they're originally an analyzer. We're talking about rare earths and I think the current administration wants to bring production back to the United States. That stopped about 25, 30 years. The Chinese owned that business. And, and I hate to break the bad news to politicians who basically couldn't run a factory for 15 seconds without busting it. 

Rich Bennett 19:03
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 19:03
I know all of them. It doesn't, I'm not being biased, just all of them. They don't have that kind of business experience where they've run the plant. Um, maybe about five minutes just so they'll walk through, but they don't understand what gears and CNC and pneumatics mean. And all that stuff. So what they did is, um, that's a dirty business back in the 90s, the Americans, the West want nothing to do with 

Rich Bennett 19:25
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 19:25
like, like environmentally dirty. They dumped it on China. China went up the learning curve. There's actually universities that teach you and you get degrees on rare earth mining and refining, if you will. And you know, and you need rare earths for all the components 

Rich Bennett 19:42
in right 

Joe Gulesserian 19:43
Magnus and so forth for computers now the Chinese have been at 30 years. They're now doing it in the clean way They're refining their rare earths so you know, I can't sign a pen and just and and their universities have courses in rare earths We don't have that in the West so for catching up to that 25 30 years you need time you can't you can't just you know bring the machines in reshore 

Rich Bennett 20:12
yeah 

Joe Gulesserian 20:12
you know, you're gonna lose your skill set and I grew up I'm old enough to remember You know the 

Rich Bennett 20:19
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 20:20
manufacturing because I you know, I think I mentioned last show by by skill I learned toolmaking for my dad right so I understand those things and you know I'm not saying I was a great tool maker but I understand it and I have a great appreciation for it so US car companies were defenders in some aspects Microsoft's a defender to their operating system But they're also a prospector with teams so they can jump from area to area So I'm not knocking now a classical defender in this day and age once upon a time when you know people counted Their times table instead of calories was McDonald's and McDonald's is a classical Defender you and we're gonna go in the stuck in the middle later. We're gonna go through all this stuff It's a defender. Is it greasy spoon. Well kind is it healthy not quite healthy? Can I get 

Rich Bennett 21:15
good. 

Joe Gulesserian 21:15
the coffee's 

Rich Bennett 21:15
I'm bad. McAfee 

Joe Gulesserian 21:19
Yeah, and yeah, 

Rich Bennett 21:21
yeah, yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 21:21
pretty good on the run like when I went to LA I I got one for the airport and I ended up in a not so good neighborhood But it didn't matter 

Rich Bennett 21:29
I would 

Joe Gulesserian 21:29
the coffee was good I pulled over anyways and got my coffee 

Rich Bennett 21:32
I would take no I would take me. 

Joe Gulesserian 21:35
Yeah, there's Starbucks 

Rich Bennett 21:35
the over starbucks any day. Yeah 

Joe Gulesserian 21:40
Yeah, me too. Yeah, and starbucks is a different brand which if you want we can touch on it But anyways, so McDonald's has become 

if you will a Reactor you know they become defender and then they've really become a reactor And that's what I'm gonna get into you're clear on the analyzer. They watch your mistakes They improve your product. They bring it to the market they create into a brand the Japanese and now the Chinese companies with BYD Cars 

Rich Bennett 22:12
already 

Joe Gulesserian 22:12
coming to Canada where I live They're not you know, yeah, they're already here in another month or two And they're not in United States they have a car BYD, which is now I don't know if people know this China surpassed Japan is the largest exporter of vehicles in the 

Rich Bennett 22:30
world 

Joe Gulesserian 22:32
Cadillac sells more cars in India Cadillac sells more cars in China than the United States 

Buick is relatively a revered brand in China 

it's a revered brand and of course Elon Musk 

Rich Bennett 22:50
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 22:50
is absolutely revered We're gonna get into mr. Ma you might have heard a Elon Musk. I know who's that. Let's yeah. We've heard of him. Okay. There you go 

So the reactor is a lot of the US car companies when the Japanese came up with reliable cars The jam came up the Vega Pinto mental. They were reacting the Pacer. I'm going off the top of my head I remember them. I thought the Pacer 

Rich Bennett 23:15
car 

Joe Gulesserian 23:15
is a good 

Rich Bennett 23:16
glass. Yeah 

Joe Gulesserian 23:19
Yeah, they're not prospectors like when I lia Koka created an affordable sports To door sports car name namely the Mustang the fort is is a icon, right and Right now I would say Netflix has become a reactor. They're getting they're getting Blowback because a lot of their films and their productions are very woke, you know, it's some of its Believable like you know lie to me a bit. I'll buy into it But I mean, you know, let's cut it off at Santa Claus, okay, and Intel 73 billion dollars of share buybacks as opposed to investing in plants. There are nowhere in the league as Taiwan semi conductor Manufacturing for 

Rich Bennett 24:06
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 24:06
I'm caught talking computer chips Apple will not Buy at unless they've changed they do not buy Intel chips because they don't meet Apple standards They're buying chips off Taiwan semi conductor Taiwan semi conductor are chips that they make chips for 

Rich Bennett 24:23
okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 24:24
everybody in the world You design them. They'll make them 

Rich Bennett 24:27
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 24:27
right they're like a contract manufacturer, right in my industry I don't make my own shampoos, but I have companies that make them for me, right? Because I don't want to get 

Rich Bennett 24:36
them right 

Joe Gulesserian 24:37
silo 

Rich Bennett 24:37
Yeah 

Joe Gulesserian 24:38
manufacturing and stuff, especially in Canada. Coca-Cola has turned into a reactor. I think there are 78 -- they're bringing out commercials, too. Once upon a time, Coca-Cola quintessentially defined Americana. It was the red white -- it was -- it is arguably like, I'll have about two or three years. I have a greasy spoon break down. I'm very careful. And my wife kind of looks at me. There's about six or seven teaspoons of sugar in every can. But the concept of drinking a Coca-Cola, especially in your kid, in that glass bottle is just the most nostalgic, romantic feeling. It just makes you feel like life is worthwhile. And especially when I was a kid, my idea of heaven until I got there was Coca-Cola, a hamburger, and french fries. I was good. 

Rich Bennett 25:33
I was 

Joe Gulesserian 25:35
thought 

Rich Bennett 25:35
back 

Joe Gulesserian 25:35
it 

Rich Bennett 25:35
in the day. 

Joe Gulesserian 25:36
I was good. And my dad used to tell me, "You don't care." 

Rich Bennett 25:40
Uh-huh. 

Joe Gulesserian 25:40
You know, it's a kid, you know. 

Rich Bennett 25:42
Uh-uh. 

Joe Gulesserian 25:42
You're invincible. So that was a reactor. And I'm saying Netflix is a reactor now to prime, you know, to all the stuff that you're seeing out there that you can buy videos on. And they're going to be a reactor because you can create your own television series now and be done with some of this. But IBM, Xerox was a reactor. You were in the business equipment business years ago. And 

Rich Bennett 26:12
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 26:12
Xerox became a reactor. And what's sad about the Xerox story, is it's in the Pelatoria laboratories in the late 1960s. They had a division and they actually invented the graphical user interface and the mouse. That whole idea is a Xerox invention. So you're you're going to really appreciate this. You and I, when we were kids didn't turn around say "Fotoco" 

Rich Bennett 26:39
Xerox, 

Joe Gulesserian 26:40
Rich? 

Rich Bennett 26:40
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 26:40
No. Xerox, you didn't use, it was colloquial Xerox it. So 

anyways, when this was shown to the executives who were primarily accountant types at Xerox, some were former bean counters from the Ford Motor Corporation. When it was shown to them, Rich, what happened is they looked at it, they said, "Well, you know what? We're making money with you know, tolders, photocopiers. We've got the... They had 

Rich Bennett 27:16
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 27:17
a patent. A trademark on it. Nobody could touch that patent. I think the dry, the way they processed it. That didn't break till maybe the 1980s. We're not interested in something like this. That's when Gates and Steve Jobs came around and got to grab that technology. And if you like, just remind me, there's the it's called the "Alto computer" it's a 1971 commercial, shows a guy walking to an office, sending messages to other people in his teams, and with a mouse, with a graphical user face. One day we're all going to send messages electronically. 

Rich Bennett 27:56
Really? 

Joe Gulesserian 27:56
It's kaboshed it. They couldn't see the future. Yeah, look, I made my bonus. I'm happy. 

I made my bonus. I'm the executive. I'm the president, vice president, the senior suite. We make our... I'm out of here in four or five years. Right? So, yeah, I made my bonus. I'm happy. You know, free markets are perfect either. And we pay senior executives in C-suite. We pay her or him to see the future. That's their job. Henry 

Rich Bennett 28:29
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 28:30
Ford saw the future. Elon Musk sees the future. You can all argue that maybe Sam Altman sees the future. Henry Ford Edison, all these types of Sloan saw the future. Certainly the designer of cars, and you know, I'm talking about Harley Earle. I love to read a book about him. The guy was phenomenal. I saw the future. And so you're paid to see the future. And they're so busy, they're in an area called strategic inertia. That means in anyone's business, you might be in a family business. That's how we did it then. This is how my father did it. This is how we're doing. But the world changed. The market changed. It shifted. It's a different game. You're in the Super Bowl and the other team is playing 

Rich Bennett 29:24
Yeah. Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 29:25
a 

Rich Bennett 29:25
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 29:25
different game in the second quarter. You got to change. You can't... you know, there's not change for the sake of change. You got to... What's the right word? You don't need to be genius to forget it. Read the room. 

Rich Bennett 29:39
The room, and as we said in or overcomment or adapting overcom. 

Joe Gulesserian 29:45
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 29:46
Otherwise, 

Joe Gulesserian 29:46
like, 

Rich Bennett 29:46
you're gonna be 

Joe Gulesserian 29:47
Yeah, you had some comments for me, 'cause then I'm gonna. 

Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 29:52
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 29:52
exactly. 

Rich Bennett 29:52
I've 

Joe Gulesserian 29:52
That's what will happen. So, there we are. And so then we get into these areas on a business level and watch these companies, and I kind of teased upon this. There's really four business strategies as a company. You can be a differentiator. You can focus. You can be cost leadership or stuck in the middle, okay? So I'll give you an example of cost leadership. Tata Motors and India makes $4, 500 or cars. 

Rich Bennett 30:22
heard of that. 

Joe Gulesserian 30:23
They're not great cars, but they're good enough for India's better than, like it's like. 

I'm not knocking them, but they're just 

Rich Bennett 30:33
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 30:34
not cars that we to 

Rich Bennett 30:35
world. 

Joe Gulesserian 30:35
the 

Rich Bennett 30:35
They serve their purpose. 

Joe Gulesserian 30:37
One of the problems India has that China, right? India has still a mercantile aside to which is a fancy word for which protect our markets. There is no example of countries that protect their markets and protect it from competition that are able to leapfrog their products in the export markets. You go to China. It's so hyper competitive. We're gonna get into why Tesla's there too. That it's so hyper competitive, they get so good at competition, they're rarely, really able to export abroad. I'll give you an example of cost leadership. The Japanese cars in the 1960s, 1970s. They came in low, t went up the food chain. They went, you know, right now when we say Toyota, it's reliability, right? Same with Honda. You can't argue that point. 

It's like my cousin came to visit me. He's talking about bringing, he's an American. He's bringing, they've got to bring jobs back to America and I go, well, you parked your mask outside. How did that go for you, right? And so he kind of really thinks about that too much. But seriously, BYD motors, they're into cost leadership, but they're also focused, okay? They're very focused. And BYD makes a 10,000, and China sells for $10, 000, $11, 000 in American dollars. And it's 

Rich Bennett 32:07
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 32:07
called a Seagull, okay? It's in the car. It's very reliable, really, really good. And well-built, my friend's a car reviewer. These are really good cars. And they would, the Ford motor company president was in China about eight, 10 months ago. He says, we'd get slaughtered. He's seeing some of the cars there. They have stuff in China for lower cost, but that's so much more advanced in the range rover. They're going, they're in their car markets going, like they've got some really great vehicles. Some of them, they can spin 180, 360 degrees. Some go on the land into the water, out of the water. 

Rich Bennett 32:51
Wow, 

Joe Gulesserian 32:51
And one of the reasons is, we lost their 

Rich Bennett 32:55
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 32:56
manufacturing. And for manufacture, I think we mentioned the last show, tinkering and playing around, and gadgets and garages, and going to, you know, electronic schools, and going to technical schools, and learning trades, a little bit of engineering, CAD, CAM. Whatever you're learning, you know, some of them, and today, of course, the AI and so forth. It kept 

Rich Bennett 33:20
Yes. 

Joe Gulesserian 33:20
your mind occupied, you know? You know, but who needs to do anything anymore? You know, in lieu of accomplishment, all we have to do is scroll, there you go. You're all set. So anyways, that was my, 

Rich Bennett 33:38
yes, 

Joe Gulesserian 33:38
OK. So BYD motors, another cost leadership, but differentiates is Ikea. I think you have Ikea in America, this we just company. Low cost, no wastage, you go home and assemble it, and you, and this way, when you're assembling it with your other half, like your significant other, you know, it's such, it's so much fun assembling furniture and fighting at the same time, about how we should be assembling it, right? And yeah, it's just a ritual. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:14
No, just it's real. 

Joe Gulesserian 34:16
[LAUGHTER] 

Rich Bennett 34:16
Would you sit there? It's happened. And you know, because I'm, I'm sorry, one of 

Joe Gulesserian 34:22
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:22
the things you always hear is for some reason, they say men don't read instructions. I always read instructions. 

Joe Gulesserian 34:30
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 34:31
sometimes you can't understand them, but I always read 

Joe Gulesserian 34:33
things 

Rich Bennett 34:33
them. Or even look 

Joe Gulesserian 34:36
it. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 34:36
at 

Joe Gulesserian 34:36
And 

Rich Bennett 34:38
good. because some things you get with the instructions, there are no words. It's pictures. That's the instructions. I'm like, 

Joe Gulesserian 34:48
exactly. 

Rich Bennett 34:49
And then you'll have like 

Joe Gulesserian 34:51
Great. 

Rich Bennett 34:51
seven different size of screws, screws, but it won't tell you what it is. It'll just have a diagram. Who you come on? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:03
No, I know. When push, Oh, geez, I have to get instructions. I have to change the smoke and the car. 

Rich Bennett 35:09
Oh, the detector, yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 35:11
detector in our home. I ordered one. So you're right, though. Many was outside Ikea when I gave you. But let me give you a differentiation. 

Maserati. It's not BMW. I not Lexus. It is. I've been to their 

Rich Bennett 35:29
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:30
factory. I think I mentioned your last show. My wife took me there. And I saw all their old Maserati's the new ones that are systems of manufacturing. I'm not saying it's the most reliable, eccentric, differentiative. It's not Mercedes. It's not BMW. It's in the car 

Rich Bennett 35:48
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:48
of its own. It's a very complex difference. It's Italian. It's like the sound of the motor. It's heritage. Let's not talk about its reliability, but it's not that bad anymore. Another great differentiators. BMW. They're losing part of it. The ultimate driving machine. There's other competitors out there. But the other one, I was going to mention and most of the people owned this is Apple. They just know how to 

Rich Bennett 36:20
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 36:20
differentiate. 

Rich Bennett 36:20
yeah. Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 36:23
I'm 

Rich Bennett 36:23
when it comes to the 

Joe Gulesserian 36:24
complaint. 

Rich Bennett 36:24
difference in the 

Joe Gulesserian 36:24
I'm so cool. Yeah. Yeah, but the guy who's helping with my website is the M-chap. So we go to Starbucks. We go there and know we brought the laptops out. When you go to Starbucks, which is a differentiator, I'm not there for the 

Rich Bennett 36:42
You're 

Joe Gulesserian 36:42
cost. 

Rich Bennett 36:42
there to work. 

Joe Gulesserian 36:43
But if you see the, well, it's not kind of. Now it's not just the Starbucks is a differentiator and focus. It's not just a coffee. I go there with my laptop. I go with the phone, my phone. I put the earplugs on. And what I'm doing is basically it's where all the main rituals happen as well. 

Rich Bennett 37:06
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:07
This is how you meet people. Yeah. This is how you meet somebody and you go there and, look, I'm sowing to myself and my music and it's basically, look how cool I am on my laptop. And I knew I'm jumping. And if I have an apple there and I have an iPhone Pro 19. And I have the you know, 

Rich Bennett 37:25
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:25
the white ear earphones and and I'm so hip I might even have my laptop out. It's become a ritual if you want. It's, it's a meeting 

Rich Bennett 37:38
it. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:38
ritual. 

Rich Bennett 37:39
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:39
They do 

Rich Bennett 37:39
Yeah. Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:40
And you know, poor burgers like us have to do it differently. But I mean, 

Rich Bennett 37:44
what are the other things to with 

Joe Gulesserian 37:46
with a 

Rich Bennett 37:46
box, basically all coffee shops. And we mentioned this. I think before we started recording, you know, about how co-calling was a thing back in the day. Now it's meeting somebody over coffee and you're not really talking about business. You're building that relationship first. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:07
Yes. Yes. And I it's, I go to a place surround the corner from it's a Greek market cafe. And, um, Really nice authentic Greek food. Um, and not too like you'll 

Rich Bennett 38:23
yeah. Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:23
paste trees this that, you know, don't go there if you're on a diet. Great coffee. Great no wireless 

Rich Bennett 38:29
really. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:30
And on Saturdays and Sundays, you can't bring in your laptop. 

Rich Bennett 38:33
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:34
People sit down at big tables. It's outdoors, indoors. Nice atmosphere. And they just talk like, you know, because people don't understand that, 

you know, in the new world, a lot of people waste a lot of money on therapists. I should really say that ours was the closeness of the village concept we had in our community. You talk to your buddy gosh, you know, and that was your therapy. There was your therapy. There's you know, yeah, some a group for oh, yeah, and you just kind of let it all out for an hour or two. That was your therapy. And the difference was you didn't have to chain your credit card for 

Rich Bennett 39:13
You 

Joe Gulesserian 39:14
this. 

Rich Bennett 39:14
weren't told when to leave. 

Joe Gulesserian 39:15
And yeah, exactly when to leave, exactly. I'm not knocking therapy. I mean, I understand in 

Rich Bennett 39:22
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 39:22
traumatic situations, I fully accept that. But I was very fortunate to come up with a tight family structure. And as I got older, I hit my 20s and then I was getting into business. I'd go to my dad and we just sit down and I just unload on him all my things that wasn't quite sure. And he would really 

Rich Bennett 39:45
-- 

Joe Gulesserian 39:45
create 

Rich Bennett 39:45
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 39:46
it was really good. And you're just having fun. You're having fun. You know, like we're maybe in the sense each other a sense of therapy and having fun and enjoying the warmness of, you know, talking to you. So anyways, we won't go there. So I gave you Apple. Apple differentiates with their ecosystems which you'll get into and focus is BYD China. That's a focus company. We focus on EV cars. We make the most efficient EV cars. Are they trying to end the world? You can go to developing world. You can go to Eastern Europe and parts of Western Europe. You can go to Russia. You can go to Africa. You will see Chinese cars all over the marketplace. 

Rich Bennett 40:30
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 40:33
And they're all over. And you know, I'm not saying they should band them from coming in or not band them. That's a political argument. But when you put trade barriers up, you're asking -- you're saying two things here. I'm asking my consumer to pay more for less. And I'm encouraging my domestic economy. We're doing it. 

Rich Bennett 40:58
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 40:59
this is not aimed at anyone. I'm encouraging my domestic economy to charge more for less and have no reason. No darn reason to 

Rich Bennett 41:08
Like, 

Joe Gulesserian 41:08
become more efficient. When you're in a hypercompetition, where it's cutthroat, where it's doggy dog, which sounds mean, but that's the nature of the human humanity in many -- in free markets. You start producing some great stuff. I think it was my economic book when I wrote that. What happened is they had the industrial recovery program in the great depression. It was a Roosevelt's program in Hoover. It was a complete disaster. Henry Ferd wanted nothing to do with it. You put up a blue deco saying that you know what? We give fair pricing. We charge. We charge more. But everybody gets to survive. Problem was the consumer couldn't afford it. They're already busted. The great depression went -- it started getting the price formation. Now business is brutal. China is hypercompetitive. And hypercompetitive economies. Just to survive. I got to make it. America is hypercompetitive in many aspects. It was more so, especially with this industrial base before. I think that's the reasonable assertion. So, Maserati, Apple, BMW, differentiators, focuses, BYD, and another one that focuses whole 

Rich Bennett 42:34
market. 

Joe Gulesserian 42:34
food 

Rich Bennett 42:35
They 

Joe Gulesserian 42:35
focus on healthy whole foods. Go in there rich. And you see the cash years, the people working the aisles. They're more gentle than if you go to Walmart. I'm not knocking. 

Rich Bennett 42:49
Baby, you're right. 

Joe Gulesserian 42:50
They're just gentle. They're just gentle people. Like, I just feel like -- and they're so gentle. You walk in there and you know, I better put my nice face on around them. You know, like you want to -- they bring it down to -- they must have done this. They must have thought through a level of civility. 

Rich Bennett 43:10
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:10
You know, like a little nice level. And you get out of the way. I'm first in the line up and all that stuff. I don't -- you know, you see that elsewhere. So, I find that, just gentle people. There's a company in here in Toronto, Canada. Their national -- it's called Farm Voice, which is similar to whole foods. Natural, not super natural, but great -- good -- and you see the employees, they're hired. They look so gentle. 

Rich Bennett 43:40
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:41
You know, they look civil 

Rich Bennett 43:43
It projects. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:44
and compassionate. 

Rich Bennett 43:44
It gets passed on. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:47
It gets passed on and you start liking them. You like walking that 

Rich Bennett 43:51
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:51
store. It's like, you know, it's like a form of therapy from the madness of the world, you know? 

Rich Bennett 43:56
It's almost like, 

oh, God, the word just went right out of my head. But yeah, like walking into a peaceful zen garden or whatever. It's just all that positive 

Joe Gulesserian 44:10
energy. That was the right word. 

Rich Bennett 44:12
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 44:13
I didn't know you were in the funky stuff like zen like that. But so then there's other companies that are stuck in the middle, Intel. 

Rich Bennett 44:21
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 44:21
earlier I was telling you and there were leaders in the world and chip 

Rich Bennett 44:24
Yep. 

Joe Gulesserian 44:25
manufacturing, they decided to be leaders in the world and share by back some 70 billion dollars and then they go to the government and ask for money because they bought back their shares right. This is chronic capitalism. If some of the kids are moving a little bit towards socialism it's because not that I advocate that when you have chronic capitalism, when you have groups of aristocracy and a society, this is the only answer they can come up with. It's not a great answer but it's the only answer. In other words, stuff like share bybacks, chronic capitalism. They just give capitalism free markets a bad name and share bybacks, they were illegal, they should be illegal. That is not why you're deployed, shareholder capital. Your job is to put money in R and D and create. That's your job and then if your share prices go up, voila! But they don't care, look, I made my bonus, I'm out the door in two years, I'm good, I'll shake hands, I'll write a few books, I'll misconstruse how I built the company instead of destroyed it, you know what they 

Rich Bennett 45:35
Another 

Joe Gulesserian 45:35
do. 

one is stuck in the middle and they're gone pretty well, the seers. 

Rich Bennett 45:45
They're total lines still out there? 

Joe Gulesserian 45:48
Yeah, exactly. JC Penny stuck in the middle, nobody, the kids won't go there, Macy's is still hanging on, so why don't you give me an example of a company you think stuck in the middle, they can't define themselves. 

Rich Bennett 46:05
I love them, I can think of that, are new longer there. Actually you're seeing that with Macy's because you're seeing a the Macy's closed down now. Who's the other one, Nordstrom? 

Joe Gulesserian 46:19
Nordstrom's pretty high-end, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 46:20
I'm going to go old school, twizz or else, twizz or else I believe was stuck in... 

Joe Gulesserian 46:27
Possibly yeah, but they're focused though too, but they're in a vicious fight with Amazon, aren't 

Rich Bennett 46:35
they? Well yeah, but here's the thing, because from what I saw, the main stores and then they were going back in recently, not recently, maybe 10 years ago going into Macy's, but now you're starting to see some of the Macy's closed down. Yeah, so... 

Joe Gulesserian 46:57
Oh definitely. I'll give you another one, maybe stuck in the middle. It was probably good in the 1960s, Duncan don't. 

Rich Bennett 47:05
It's now Duncan. Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 47:09
it Duncan now? 

Rich Bennett 47:09
is 

Joe Gulesserian 47:10
Yeah, because they have to change the name. 

Rich Bennett 47:12
And 

Joe Gulesserian 47:13
and you know, there's no way they're going to compete with Starbucks. You got the cool... Their Starbucks 

Rich Bennett 47:20
is cool, yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 47:20
We went through the mating ritual, right? But it is quite hilarious, I sat down with my IT guy. They're working on my website for two hours. And you know, the girls are dressed like pristine, proper, you know, like really nice and and you know they're you know, keep my comments to myself. The guys are like it's a cool meter, right? You know, you know, they're all Steve McQueen except they've got digital equipment on them, right? But... 

Rich Bennett 47:50
And I'll still take Duncan Donuts coffee over Starbucks too. I love Duncan Colton. 

Joe Gulesserian 47:55
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 47:56
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 47:57
it's good, huh? Yeah, I haven't been in there for a while. 

Rich Bennett 48:00
It is 

Joe Gulesserian 48:01
Starbucks is cool. But anyways, yeah, that scoop there is a stuck in the middle and 

Rich Bennett 48:09
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 48:11
So anyways, I know I kind of went on to a rant there, but it's this is kind of stuff that people can use and really analyze their business and before I just go into saying, oh yeah, you know, I've got six AI tricks that'll make you money, right? I understand this is, you know, classical 

Rich Bennett 48:29
structure. 

Joe Gulesserian 48:29
competitive 

Rich Bennett 48:30
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 48:30
And then how do appear? Shoot all this new technology into it. But you go to Walmart, you go, well, why why does Walmart have competitive advantage? What do we mean by competitive advantage? Well, I broke down prospector analyst or defender reactor. I broke down stuck in the middle focus differentiation 

and low cost entrance. We broke those eight areas down. But why is Walmart succeed? One is they've they've got automated logistics. They have what they call also, uhm, I had it down here for Wal-Mart retail link, retail link means in English, if you're a vendor of Wal-Mart, you can see what they have within your category, if you're a captain, um, I won't go into the details, people deal with Wal-Mart will know this. 

Don't want to give them 2 little stock. The another way Wal-Mart has competitive advantage is that they also have a very small stock room, they just bring just in time inventory, that's an old Japanese trick, we use it now 

Rich Bennett 49:44
way. 

Joe Gulesserian 49:44
in the 

Rich Bennett 49:45
As 

Joe Gulesserian 49:45
well, they're AI analytics, and what Wal-Mart's been able to do, and you know, they were kind of like on the ropes with this, they got their stores, they got their online, they sink them beautifully, 

Rich Bennett 50:00
yes, 

Joe Gulesserian 50:01
they're omnichaddles, they're really, really efficient, um, company. I know there are big stores, I got to be a track athlete to get through them, right, but the same with, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 50:16
At least you can buy groceries while you're terrible at running. 

Joe Gulesserian 50:20
Yeah, yeah. So that's what gave Wal-Mart, it gives them competitive advantage. And any comments or anything, because I'm going to go to B-Y-D, and that's kind of like 

Rich Bennett 50:30
it's funny, because with Wal-Mart, you know, they, who was Wal-Mart's biggest competitor, it was Amazon. Then 

Joe Gulesserian 50:41
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 50:41
Wal-Mart started the, you know, home delivery and stuff like that. And now it's like they're running neck and neck, now Wal-Mart does have an advantage because Wal-Mart still have storefronts, Amazon does not. 

Joe Gulesserian 50:55
Exactly. 

Yes. Yes, you can go to Whole Foods, yeah, right, no, you're right, Whole Foods, yeah, I think you can go there for returns, something like that. And Amazon is like, I should have talked about Amazon's competitive advantage, but that's another story, because I've really studied them. 

Rich Bennett 51:13
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 51:15
And I was, you write about that, then you're coming up to me and people are saying, well, how can B-Y-D make $10, 000 cars, and how was their competitive advantage? Well, they've got a fair bit there, it's, they're vertically integrated, which is basically means they make their own batteries, motors, electronics, chips in house, controlling costs and supply. So they don't experience the same shortages if you're outsourcing. 

Rich Bennett 51:40
You know who B-Y-D, 

Joe Gulesserian 51:41
they have a they call 

Rich Bennett 51:44
early one day, 

Joe Gulesserian 51:49
exactly. Yeah, the differences high end is still Kia still makes lousy cars, they do, this is according to all 

Rich Bennett 51:58
reviews. 

Joe Gulesserian 51:58
the 

Rich Bennett 51:58
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 51:59
I watch just, I watch on YouTube, but two or three mechanics that go through real, sometimes a minute or four minutes and sometimes they get young and old mechanics and they're which cars you recommend. 

Rich Bennett 52:10
Uh-huh. 

Joe Gulesserian 52:15
Yeah, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Honda, which ones you don't, Kia, keep away from all Kia's, you know? 

Rich Bennett 52:21
Uh-huh. 

Joe Gulesserian 52:22
that's them. 

Rich Bennett 52:23
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 52:23
So I pick it up on 

Rich Bennett 52:24
I, 

Joe Gulesserian 52:24
YouTube. Yeah. 

Go ahead. It's separate frame, 

Rich Bennett 52:41
separate, yeah, separate frame, but it's still a Hyundai. 

It's true. Yeah, I think it's a car manufacturer to look out for. 

Joe Gulesserian 53:01
Yeah, definitely. There's a largest EV exporter. Now, um, Elon Musk in 2023, the model, why 

Rich Bennett 53:13
um, 

Joe Gulesserian 53:13
at one point was the best selling car in the world. 

Rich Bennett 53:17
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 53:21
We'll talk about costs, fertilization and the second taking ideas back and forth, right? Um, in a hyper competitive market. Um, but it's worth talking about there. But, um, yeah, I didn't lose you,do  

Rich Bennett 53:40
I? No, no, no,no , no, no, no, no, I need to ruptured you because you were getting ready to talk about, be wide day. 

Joe Gulesserian 53:46
Okay, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, no, no, no, no, no, that's okay. I wasn't sure I was hitting my computer for a second. Um, but we'll get into Tessa just just for a moment and just right after BYD and you know, um, Tessa is one of the top producers of cars of EVs in China as well. 

So Black blade battery technologies like LFP chemistry supports lower cost safety and long battery life. They've got economies of scale high volumes shared platforms modular design. They are going deep into development of battery technology software AI more efficient drive trains. So, yeah, they've got their global expansion. So when you're a global brand, you learn stuff I sold in 10's India, I sold in Kenya, I sold in in other countries, and I learned what those people want, I bring it back home, and because I'm a global brand, I'm getting intelligence from all four corners of the world. But if you're selling domestically so I know I see how they like to drive and use their cars in East Africa versus Singapore versus Malaysia versus some other countries or versus they sell to Vietnam and they sell to Russia. So now I see all these ideas I bring back home and I even make even a more competitive product with more attributes and more because I understand the 

Rich Bennett 55:33
better. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:33
world 

Rich Bennett 55:34
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:34
Right. So yeah, they are global. They are reliable cars, and I don't work for them. You think I thought I was working for them or something. So they do lean production. And again, the China supply chain has government incentives and support growth. Anyway, you look 

Rich Bennett 55:53
it. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:53
at 

Rich Bennett 55:53
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:54
And overseas they have fleet partnerships. They can reduce the logistics and tariff costs that way. So they do make overseas as well. And going on again, they're in a hyper competitive market. They either sink or swim. There's not there's, you know, you're, you're cooked. And if you don't really compete. 

Rich Bennett 56:18
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:19
Which now brings us to the space man, Mr. Musk. 

Rich Bennett 56:23
And 

Joe Gulesserian 56:27
he asked yourself, well, what really makes if you were going to talk just about Tesla, what makes it interesting is, is first of all, it's emotional loyalty to its customers. It's virtue signaling. Right. Cause I got a Tesla. It's like, I parked one in my driveway. It's it's a, like, I don't like the designs myself, but I understand. It's, it's a social statement. They're getting a lot of their knowledge from their hyper competitive know how in China. I believe Tesla is the only, if only a few Western companies were the majority share stay with the company, they don't have to have a majority shareholder being from China. They can have like Elon Musk was the majority of the shareholders are as opposed to the local Chinese company. So one thing he got was he had early leadership is called first mover advantage in EVs. 

Rich Bennett 57:31
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 57:32
Okay. He's got integrated marketing technology. So he had a chance to build his brand recognition, his powertrain engineering production. So over the air upgrades, all these improve after purchase 

functions and so forth and experiences, but the other thing that really gives him strategic advantage is, he's got super chargers and that's what really, really helps them with cars like this. They got the model, why which is well, when it comes to EVs, Tesla 

Rich Bennett 58:09
market. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:10
owns the 

Rich Bennett 58:10
There 

Joe Gulesserian 58:11
in North America and the story that's going to change, but don't ever count Tesla out because Elon Musk, his engineers, the people that work there, they have so much exposure to China. They know how to fight in the sandbox and get rid of you take it to a really good street fight. 

Rich Bennett 58:30
Yes, 

Joe Gulesserian 58:31
because you know, you know, this, this is not a ballet, it's not rock money enough. It's, it's a, you know, it's one of those. It's one of those finite bar room rules that doesn't end, you know, 

Rich Bennett 58:45
I heard it then. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:49
That is somebody. 

uh, that's the best thing. 

Rich Bennett 58:56
What's that? 

Joe Gulesserian 58:58
Yeah, look, go 

Rich Bennett 58:59
to say go 

Joe Gulesserian 58:59
ahead 

Rich Bennett 58:59
ahead. No, I was gonna say that that's somebody I would just love to sit down with and talk to is Elon Musk. 

Joe Gulesserian 59:07
Uh, 

Rich Bennett 59:07
just to, uh, 

Joe Gulesserian 59:23
in his car or the Tesla, it's like, "Oh my goodness, my car, guess what? The company that I bought my car from, they haven't gone to the moon. They're going to Mars, they're going to try and colonize, they're going up to space. They're going to make space travel affordable for upper middle class. I might be able to go to space for two hours or three hours for 150 grand. I would, 

Rich Bennett 59:48
definitely. 

Joe Gulesserian 59:51
See what Neil Armstrong did to see the earth. So when you see the earth from far away, like a lot of the American astronauts and others did, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:01
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:01
You start seeing how tiny we are, how irrelevant we are, and how childish it is to have all these unimportant disagreements. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:13
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:14
Unless 

it's about wrestling, of course. That's worthwhile. But, but seriously though, so, so I'm buying my test. I got the SpaceX in it. I got the, I got the, I got the Starlink as well, right. So all these things are enamoring it and the government needs Starlink because they're using Starlink and the war with Russia and Ukraine, right. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:38
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:38
You got to have some of that, right. So you know, I'm buying this technology and we are enamored with this man, right. Now we stepped away from politics, which I mentioned in my book is, you know, don't get involved with this. 

Yeah, you can just, you don't need to get involved. Stay behind the curtains. And so, yeah. So people are enamored. I know he's polarizing to some people in the West and, you know, they're key in cars from to Tesla cars and so forth. But I 

Rich Bennett 1:01:16
they got 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:16
can't, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:16
busted, too. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:18
They got busted exactly. And this is childish behavior. You know, the man, there's no need for analysis because you know, I get mad because I'm more angry, it makes me right. This is just, it's ridiculous. Anger is not analysis, right. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:33
here's the thing that, and I think Elon will be the one to solve this problem. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:39
But 

Rich Bennett 1:01:39
At least here in the States, you're hearing to think about the data centers, people are against these data centers going up because it requires a lot of water. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:47
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:48
I think it would be the one to solve that problem. And somehow another B would have put data centers up in space, where 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:58
we get already 

Rich Bennett 1:02:00
say what, we're getting 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:01
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:01
water. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:01
there's a part of me. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:03
A 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:05
different technology. They're actually, yeah, actually read up on that because you might know more than me. I know you're talking about the data, they're starting to do it up in space. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:17
It would make sense. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:19
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:20
but you think about it with like with Starlink and everything, satellite phones, everything, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:24
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:24
satellite. why not have the data right there? 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:28
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:28
it'll be a true cloud. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:31
And in my book, of course, I talked about the 12 greatest entrepreneurs, I think was chapter two. they changed the course of civilization. And Elon Musk is one of them. So 

Rich Bennett 1:02:44
Oh, yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:45
now we go to AI and 

go a little bit more and I'll just take it. So you understand what Tesla is doing for their brand advantage. Apple could be argued and I'll skip Apple for now, but again, Apple's strategic brand advantage is their ecosystem. Not just their quality, not just their chips, the simplicity of use, switching switching costs. Their whole, you know, Apple laptops, Apple phones, their Apple 

Rich Bennett 1:03:19
wide 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:19
watches, 

Rich Bennett 1:03:20
watches. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:21
You name it the whole ecosystem. Yeah. So that one's pretty straightforward. So then I'm going to tell you using AI for a competitive advantage. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:31
Okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:31
you know, you just mentioned that you would like to talk to Elon Musk and spend a couple of hours 

Rich Bennett 1:03:37
and. Oh, yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:37
sit down and chat with them and who wouldn't. So let's say, I've got a podcast and my name's Rich and it there. and on the podcast, I want to get an opinion on how I can even make my podcast bigger, because, you know, we wanna make you one of those James Bond villains where you're taking over the world, you know? 

I'm giving you really, I'm talking about really good competitive advantage. This is, this is all so since I do it for my business. You, you want someone to talk to, but no one on your, your your podcast, no one understands you when you go to a party, they go, Oh, isn't that great? They just see all the nice stuff, not the preparations, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:32
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:33
struggling and building and building your viewerships. So, on my executive, you know, you don't want the local plumber. Um, what you want is, you, on my executive jury, you command chat GPT, I am creating an executive jury, and I'm gonna need like an executive board, and I'm gonna need opinions. And here who, here is who is on them. Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and I'll pick one another massive podcaster. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:08
Dave Jackson. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:09
Dave Jackson, and pick, so I'm going to have these four, you can add more people. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:14
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:14
Now, I, these are the four people I'm going to ask opinions from you could do this in any business you're in, you can have a, a coffee shop, you could have whatever it is, right. But let's stick to podcasting. So, we brought these four, five, well, very well known podcasters. I'll put George Gallow in there, too. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:33
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:34
You know, I might be the, the British guy. And so we have these five podcasters. And I'm going to be asking them questions. Okay. My first question is, what makes that podcast resonate with a certain type of guest that doesn't listen to another certain guest? And next thing, you know, Elon Musk is chiming in Joe Rogan's chiming in, Tucker Carlson's chiming in George Gallow is chiming in. Right? 

Rich Bennett 1:06:06
Brilliant. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:07
Yeah. Well, this is good. You're going to take over the world. I hope. Hey, you taking me to Dunkin' Donuts after this one. I come visit you. Come on. Okay, and I want a large 

Rich Bennett 1:06:17
coffee now. I'll take you to a good local coffee shop. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:22
No. So, you know, you're, you're going to have to pick your own jury. And you can just start it on chat. And this is one of the ways. So I can do it. I do it with products. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:33
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:35
I do it with marketing ideas. So I bring in for products. Who would I bring in in the health and be the care industry? I bring in Charles Reveson. Well, I know a guy. He was one of my mentors and he passed away. And he was the president of international shake. And Charles Reveson is the founder of Revlon. I mean, there's. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:53
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:54
People too. And he was offered a job at Revlon. He turned it down because Revson was like, at Charles Reveson, there was a badge of honor to be fired by Reveson's president. It's like George Steinbrander. You know, he fired this. He fired his coaches, most of his general managers. So, but so I would put, you know, maybe a former president of Proctor and Gamble. It may be someone Chanel, the founder of Chanel, maybe Mary Kay. I put a list of people like that. And I go, what do you think of this, right? And so, but I got your thinking right now. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:27
Oh, yes. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:07:29
Oh, yeah. And I know what you're thinking. You're going to put an executive jury together to see if you can win an argument with your wife,I  see. I don't know about that. But I know you'll be able to get a job. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:39
I don't know. I don't know. I know that. I don't know. I have a job. I don't know. Trust me. That won't 

Joe Gulesserian 1:07:41
work. But seriously, rich. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:43
Happy. Happy spouse. Happy house. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:07:46
Yeah. There they go. Yeah. I just delete that part because I 

Rich Bennett 1:07:49
to 

Joe Gulesserian 1:07:49
want fight another day. 

And yeah. I think you're a bad 

Rich Bennett 1:08:04
Sorry 

Joe Gulesserian 1:08:04
influence. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:04
my wife doesn't listen. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:08:08
Anyways, well, my new hair spray brand is the tag line is it makes your hair listen unlike him. 

Cool. 

I'll send you a picture of it. It makes your hair listen. Unlike him. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:28
That's brilliant. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:08:29
We got one to two of the problems solved. Yeah. So anyways, so that's one way you can get competitive advantage to AI. I gave you. Because you always. When you, especially if you're an entrepreneur or whatever the situation is, you always need the opinions and ask questions, right? 

Rich Bennett 1:08:50
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:08:50
Of other peers, some people have done a gargantuanly incredible. And so you created an executive and I was going to do it for my friend and Vancouver. I'm going to call them and show them how to do it. It's not rocket science to do it. And just ask the questions. You know, I don't know what a podcaster would ask. I'm not a podcaster. Ask the questions. So what I've done, including that, is I've given, hopefully, in this podcast a pretty good short, sweet, relatively dissertation on what constitutes competitive advantage, the components of it, the prospector, analyser, reactor, defender, low cost focus stuck in the middle. And then, you know, I brought it down to examples of competitive advantage. And it's not always just one thing. Mine is I got a new software. No. Yours is, yours is, it has to be the multitude of things you do well. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:46
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:09:47
it's, it's, you know, in your case, you connect with people very well, wish I could. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:54
I 

Joe Gulesserian 1:09:55
But, but anyways, 

Rich Bennett 1:09:58
have, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:09:58
I'll give you a 

Rich Bennett 1:09:59
play in with this. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:01
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Oh no. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:04
I am going to be working on this this weekend. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:09
Oh yeah, you'll like that one. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:11
I love the idea of an executive jury that makes sense. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:14
Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:15
I mean, you think about it. A lot of people are using AI as their virtual assistant. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:21
Right. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:21
But to put a whole freaking board together of, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:26
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:10:27
you know, the experts. Oh man. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:10:31
You know, people who have done that or in the past or anything like that and the, or I would turn around, listen, I said, I want to create a great glamorous introduction to my show when it starts. I want a great glamorous introduction and I brought Ed Sullivan on it. I know Ed, it's, it's the Internet age now, but take all your skills at just kind of, can you kind of like teach me how to create that excitement of the Beatles appearing in 1964, February? How did you do that? Talk to me. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:06
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:11:07
you know, how did you 

Rich Bennett 1:11:07
oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:11:07
do? How did what did you, what did you do? You know, anything like that, you know, 

Rich Bennett 1:11:17
f*ckers. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:11:17
oh 

Rich Bennett 1:11:18
Just 

Joe Gulesserian 1:11:18
let's go on now. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:20
Okay. Go ahead because yeah, I ain't man. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:11:23
Okay. I'm going to add quickly. Go through through two things here on competitive advantage. I gave you one. You like that one. When you go on IG and the Internet, they give you, oh, do this and, you know, it'll give godlike power to your system, Claude or AG or, you know, AI or, pardon me, Claude or Gemini. Sometimes you have to tell it, okay, stop gaslighting me. I know that your LLM model is often programmed like what I consider to be relative undesirables in Silicon Valley. Don't gaslight me, right? And you can start stuff like that because there's a lot of gaslighting going on, right? You know the world, right? Since 

Rich Bennett 1:12:14
you're 

Joe Gulesserian 1:12:15
going to believe what you see or believe what I'm telling you, right? So here's the couple. I'll give you a few here. Advanced graphical collateral material. I can now create characters on AI. I can create men, women, characters, fashion people. This, using products, I can create runners, this, that all kinds of stuff like that. What if you're hiring staff and you want to create a quick little skills test on how they're going to wean potential people who want, because you got busy after that last executive jury, you're so busy you're like, you're, you're like Bruno Mars now. And you're like a male version of Taylor Swift, you can't take all the calls. So can you create a course or at least a little brief or skills test on what kind of guests I want on my show, because I don't want Joe on there anymore. You got to boon people like that out, right? So anyways, 

Rich Bennett 1:13:22
I think I wouldn't have learned this. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:13:24
I 

can show you a graphic design that would have cost me three, four thousand dollars. If you know how to prompt it, you can start making prototype labels. You can start making prototype products. And you go, 'Yeah, that's the look I want. I want more silver. I want more that. I want more. This. Put it up on Instagram, find someone with two hundred thousand followers. And say, listen, I'm giving you five hundred dollars. I want you to put it up here for, for one week. Or I'm giving you a thousand bucks. And I want, uh, and I'll give you bonuses. If you get up to eight hundred authentic comments, okay. And you start seeing all the things. I love it. I hate it. You're louzy. That sucks. You know, the regular stuff. 'Cause people come out and they bring out all the subconscious things, 'cause, you know, they're digital warriors, keyboard warriors. So you can get a lot of R&D in the old days. During Mad Men Air, I watched that series. I loved it. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:23
Oh yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:14:24
I've seen it twice in full. And, um, and during the Mad Men Air, we had focus groups to try and get into your mind of why you bought that particular cap with seven, three, four on it. I'm trying to, well, you know, I wasn't quite. Um, and, and, and, and, um, we didn't know because you and it's not the consumer here. She is lying. She, she just doesn't know what subconsciously, why does she print a pick up brand day over B? So you can get your prototype and people will start telling you what they like, what they don't like. Um, that can help. Now don't get too caught up in that because Steve Jobs didn't do marketing research with that. He would look at it. We talked about him industrial design. He was the genius who made technology cool and he designed it in a enticing, uh, seductive way in a seductive way that people wanted to buy. So those are some of the advantages. And I'll just give off a few more. Um, you can study briefs on customers. You can get briefs on suppliers. You can get briefs on the competitive environment. I'm going to go call on Walmart. Can you please give me some of their latest challenges they're having in their bedwear department that's, I hear is it slacking? Is it growing? Is it doing this? Are they having challenges here? And you get a beautiful and say I want a summary report no long speech, right? Not a four or five hour speech at United Nations and places like that. Um, you could do testing. You could do blueprinting. You can turn around and create a product that you could do. This was caught and asked him to create a blueprint for there, if you want. It could be a water bottle. It could be a technology. It could be new badx. It could be machine parts. It could be a circuit board. Um, yeah. So there's there's a few of them. Yeah. Yeah, you you can do some. There's a couple. Um, I gave you the All Star executive committee already. You can move up to learning curve. You like that one. Um, yeah. So here's another one. The IRS is coming in, you know, I'm getting. Yeah, you like that. They're just fantastic. Would you buy them a dunk and throw that? Over the about 2,000 calories, you know, they go in epileptic shock. Anyways, um, here are my books. I've done a pretty good job with my books. Can I run them through the AI system? Yeah. I'm not an accountant, but I'm running them through here. Okay. Um, is there any flaws in my books that they can come after me for? 

Where's my Achilles heel? It'll go. You're pretty good. Your stuff is. You're off the boat $580. They're not going to bother you for that. You owe them $11 and taxes, right? So what kind of questions will they ask me? What's been? And this is what you can do. I've got you really going here. I got my. 

Rich Bennett 1:17:32
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:17:33
Going here. Oh, wow. Listen, 

Rich Bennett 1:17:36
stuff covered in your book. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:17:39
Some of it's covered in my book. And especially on the for AI and competitive advantage, a lot of it, especially the accounting. 

Rich Bennett 1:17:47
Okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:17:47
I'll give you an example. Let's say you're working at a company. There's always this friction between the accounting team, the marketing team, the executive, you know, the C suite. So 

Rich Bennett 1:17:59
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:17:59
what if, what if I create a one a three, four hour, easy to understand crash course for the marketing people to understand financial measures and and benchmarks and accounting, right? You know, you think accountings that a new dance by I don't know Taylor Swift. Or Beyonce or something like that. But it's not. So now the marketing team understands the financial pressures, the accounting teams under, then you tell the accounting team, I'm going to create a four hour seminar with a video 

with a video on why brands matter. What are marketing team goals is, goes to their struggles and now these two departments understand each other struggles. We're on the same team. We're just playing different roles and different facets. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:48
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:18:49
So I need accounting because someone's got to keep me under control. Accounting is like, well, if you can't sell our products, what am I doing here, there's nothing to count. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:57
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:18:58
Right. And all I can have to go home and watch reruns assessing street or something like that. You know, and count. You know, and yeah, yeah. So anyways, yeah. 

Don't we reach a lot of times I go 

Rich Bennett 1:19:15
out, I'm joking, one thing I love is you know, everything. When I talk to you, just the references, you always have me cracking up. Count. And now, I know he wasn't the count, but the one I can never get away from is near. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:30
Exactly. Exactly. I 

Rich Bennett 1:19:32
Hell, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:32
like selling 

Rich Bennett 1:19:33
oh 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:33
street. 

Rich Bennett 1:19:33
god. Now I'm going to have him watch 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:35
I 

Rich Bennett 1:19:35
Sesame 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:36
like 

Rich Bennett 1:19:36
Street. Thanks. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:19:36
Batman and Robin and so I mean, those are some of the ones and I'll just give you a couple of others and we'll wrap things up here. And so the other thing you can do is you can do, this is important. And so AI agents. This is in my book. You can get agents doing your work for you where they go, oh yes, agents can contact your customers. They can do this. Here's where at this stage, I'm very careful about AI. I'm getting a lot of letters that were created by E AI. I understand I can't create all those letters myself. And I'm going up and selling someone. I'm interested, uh, drop me a message. And I'll get back to you. We can maybe have a chat and they give an auto responder. And this starts getting a little bit colder to a lot of the kids that go, well, I'm used to this kind. This is the way we grew up. This is the way we we are. 

Rich Bennett 1:20:35
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:20:37
So, um, if you're inauthentic with your customer, eh, I come backfire on you. You just can't solve your business to, you know, AI agent bots and so on bots. I told you the ones I got from China right now, I'm getting a dissertation, how to run my brands, this is all done on deep seek, right? 

So there is a, you know, agenta, they have maybe 300 agents, right? The other thing you should do for competitive advantage is create a simple course on pro, I took prompt engineering, I went to online course, it's fancy word for knowing what to ask it, right? And take a prompt engineering course, have your staff take a prompt engineering course, right? And, or, put together, ask AI, what are the most important prompts I can ask you. Can you give me the top 10, 20, 30? Good. Now can you turn this into a course for my staff, I want to go over with them. I want to become more efficient, right? Okay, my accounting department has a problem. I did some really, I've got a background in accounting, but I did some really problem accounting things and I'm, you know, my other half she's helping me and they go, let's go to, I showed her how to use chat and they give suggestions and how to capitalize this, put that there, put this there. 

And, they did that and the other one I was going to mention, I mentioned the end of agents, you can look at that up, lots of stuff on marketing, you can create your own courses, you can eventually blow all that you can take the course and create it and say, can you turn it into a video? And I want the guy to be British and dry with it. Oh, cool. Or I want, you know, the girl to look, you know, this way and to be a little funny and down to earth, a little bit of a bad. But very, very serious. You can create that character and now you've got a course because people will turn around and they'll react well. 

Rich Bennett 1:22:58
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:22:58
speaker, they'll think it's a real person. Do you know how many on IG, this is going on on, I, do you know how many people on IG are fake after the commercials? 

Rich Bennett 1:23:07
Oh, I know 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:08
send their fake, they're not even real. 

Rich Bennett 1:23:10
Oh, it's ridiculous. I see it all the time. And you can tell, you could definitely tell. But, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:17
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:23:17
oh, I cannot wait to put my board together now. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:21
Oh, yeah, don't put me 

Rich Bennett 1:23:23
on this. Well, I definitely got to get your book because I didn't realize all that stuff was in your book as well. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:31
I don't hold chapter on AI in competitive advantage. I think it was 

Rich Bennett 1:23:34
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:35
Where could I say and I taped stuff off here and, and this is a 500 page book. I wrote the other one I wrote. I wrote a complete chapter on negotiations. And I went from Kennedy to Khrushchev to Elon Musk to Trump to all the Obama, all presidents, public figures, you know without passing any judgment, 

Rich Bennett 1:23:58
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:23:58
you know, what they do. And because I think I mentioned I had a when I was in school, when I, one of my professors used the foremost Gavin Kennedy in Scotland was the foremost authority on song, the most negotiation books and courses in the world on negotiations. He says, I think 

Rich Bennett 1:24:20
wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:24:20
everything's negotiable, get the best deal all the time. And I had lunch with him once when I graduated. And so I incorporated some of what he said and all the all these other icons in history and some of the stuff I learned, right. You get into a lawsuit. You know, it's like the first inning, the guy they're throwing the whole kitchen sink at you and the guys crawling under the, under the desk. That's just the first part. You know, it's just a lot of trash talking, like I told one lawyer once I go all this is his paper. It's just a bunch of words on paper. That's all it is. Right. And put in perspective, right. And, and but seriously, you know, how do you negotiate your way out of a lawsuit where, you know, everybody can come to an agreement. How do you negotiate with a supplier with a customer with a colleague? How do you make not manipulate? Just come to an agreement. Right. Right. And I had a whole chapter and, and how to defuse situations and so forth. And so I wrote a whole chapter is 12 solid chapters in there. Except if it was, if I knew you, I would have written one on wrestling too. 

Rich Bennett 1:25:35
Yeah, the funny thing is because you just mentioned negotiating and you were talking about the AI bot, the chat bots, how businesses have to be very careful with them. So I just, it came time for me to renew one of my services. I got the thing in the mail. So it's like, you know what, I'm going to go online and see what I can do. So I'm going back and forth with their chat bot, and I ended up getting, I got my renewal for a lot, actuall, 

they wanted it was supposed to be $300 some of my dollars. And I added something to it and got more than what they were already giving me and it came to 140 some dollars. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:26:28
So you saved some money. 

Rich Bennett 1:26:30
Oh big time. But if I were to talk to a live person, maybe not. I think I threw, I think I threw the bot off somehow or 

Joe Gulesserian 1:26:40
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 1:26:40
another. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:26:40
definitely, definitely. I mean, 

Rich Bennett 1:26:42
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:26:42
they're getting smarter like, you know, they're not, they're not, if they're not a G I level yet, if that's going to ever been 

Rich Bennett 1:26:48
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:26:49
achieved, I don't know, I'm not there to make those comments. But, you know, they, they do that kind of stuff and negotiations is, you know, you're doing it multiple times a day, just tiny little things like negotiating, you know. And it doesn't have to be mean and smashing desks and going nuts and, you know, doing doing a doing a rendition of Shanghai 

Rich Bennett 1:27:11
drop in the elbow. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:27:12
Yeah, drop in the elbow. Yeah, exactly. You're bad. You're corrupting me. But it's, it's understandings people's positions and understanding, and, and you know, maybe it'll be a topic for another day, but I wrote a whole chapter on that. All the things you need, like I'm doing a series right now, send it to you, maybe you could send it, it's called your trapped right. An, and I'm trying to teach skills. So I give off the cuff, cuff comments, right? You know, you know, you know, you're living in an asylum and you think it's a five star hotel because you never went outside. And not there's just one liner shorts, right? The other one was, you know, you want all the thrills, but brother, you've got you don't have the skills and you can read all the height books you want. But I tried to deliver skills hands on. 

Rich Bennett 1:28:05
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:28:05
And when I wrote it's not like, oh, this is how I did it. You can see, you know, the stuff that we discussed today. It's not how I talk about other people, and I'd 

Rich Bennett 1:28:16
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:28:16
give corpse about what happened to me. Anyways, that was the speech. And we're living in a digital gulag and we never, you know, wouldn't have it any other way. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. There 

Rich Bennett 1:28:29
was something important. Remind people where they can go to get the books. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:28:32
Well, the, well, the gorilla guide for entrepreneurs is on Amazon as is the practical MBA on economics. I have a YouTube set channel is called by my name, Joe, go. Say, and look it up on YouTube. And that's where I produced the two, it's for free a 23 minute documentary on artificial artificial intelligence and the future of propaganda. And this one I did three years ago, and most of it's coming true, you know, 

Rich Bennett 1:29:01
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:29:02
you can get a fair bit of that. I'm on LinkedIn. My name's there. And, I guess, yeah, that's pretty much it there. 

Rich Bennett 1:29:13
..what a conversation with Joe again. And I'll tell you something. Every time I talk with Joe, I walk away learning something new, laughing quite a bit, and thinking about things I hadn't considered before. One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that having a competitive advantage isn't necessarily about inventing the next big thing. Sometimes, it's about understanding what makes you different, recognizing opportunities, learning from the competition, and being willing to adapt when the world around you changes. We talked about companies like Kodak, Xerox, Walmart, Tesla, and Apple, and how some businesses have succeeded by embracing change, while others struggled because they were too comfortable doing things the way they'd always done them. And then, there's artificial intelligence. Joe shared some fascinating ways entrepreneurs and business owners can use AI, not just to save time, but to think differently, develop products, improve their operations, and make better decisions. And I've got to tell you that idea of creating your own AI executive jury, where you can explore ideas from the perspectives of some of the most successful minds and business, and media, I really got my attention. That's something I'm definitely going to experiment with myself, but there's another lesson here that I think is just as important. With all this technology at our fingertips, we can't forget the value of genuine human connection. AI can help us accomplish some incredible things, but it shouldn't replace the relationships, conversations, and trust that make businesses and community stronger. And maybe that's the biggest question to leave you with today. Are you using technology to help you move forward? Or are you allowing yourself to become so comfortable with what you're already doing that you're missing the opportunities right in front of you? A big thank you to Joe for coming back on the VKS, sharing his knowledge, his experiences, and of course his sense of humor. Be sure to check out his books, The Gorilla Guide for Entrepreneurs, and the Practical MBA on Economics, both available on Amazon. And I'd love to hear from you. Have you discovered a creative way to use AI in your business or everyday life? Or maybe you're thinking about putting together your own AI executive jury after hearing this conversation. Either way, let me know. Until next time, I'm Rich Bennett. Thanks for listening and remember, every great conversation starts with someone willing to listen and someone willing to share. Now it's your turn. Join the conversation by sharing this episode, leave in a comment or reaching out to me directly. Take care. Be kind to one another and I'll talk with you again soon.