Full Transcript for A Masterclass in Adaptation and Insight with Telecommunications Vet Paul Rupert

labor at that time, a guy named Bill Brock, on an event, and he thought that you know, I guess my skills were pretty good. 00:03:40.379 --> 00:03:44.072 And he said you know, we could use somebody like you in the offices downtown. 00:03:44.072 --> 00:03:55.012 And so I ended up getting a job at the labor department, went to graduate school, thought I was going to get out of the political world, but I got pulled back in and helped george herbert walker bush get elected. 00:03:55.012 --> 00:03:56.282 Wow. 00:03:56.282 --> 00:04:29.303 And from there, uh, I ended up working with jack kemp, who was a cabinet secretary at the housing and urban development, also former quarterback for the buffalo bills and former congressman from buffalo as well as the san diego chargers, as I recall then, and work for jack doing economic policy development in an area called enterprise zones, which is different types of tax programs and benefits that are given to small business owners in, let's say, you know, blighted economic areas, in urban areas, but we expanded that to be both urban and rural areas. 00:04:29.766 --> 00:04:31.730 And that's what I was doing for Jack for a little while. 00:04:31.901 --> 00:04:35.173 Is that kind of like what Trump did in 2017 with the opportunity? 00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:37.189 Well, all of this is this is all retread. 00:04:37.189 --> 00:04:41.603 This is a policy that was actually invented by Margaret Thatcher in the. 00:04:41.723 --> 00:04:49.629 UK back in the day, yeah, and I can't remember the term of it, but I think it was very similar to enterprise zones, something like that. 00:04:49.629 --> 00:05:04.557 And then Jack imported it, so to speak, and it's been a continuing effort to try to build up, you know, various types of lower underdeveloped economic zones across the country. 00:05:04.557 --> 00:05:11.930 You know, thinking, okay, if we can pour money into it by providing tax incentives, we get people to move in, different start businesses, et cetera. 00:05:11.930 --> 00:05:18.048 So it's been something that they've politicians have been trying to leverage for the last well, now 30 years. 00:05:18.841 --> 00:05:23.632 And then I got out of that business, and then I got into the telecommunications and the high-tech world. 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:26.750 So do we refer to you as the godfather of Opportunity Zones. 00:05:27.521 --> 00:05:29.408 Actually I was called the Zone Czar. 00:05:29.901 --> 00:05:30.959 Oh, I like it even better. 00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:32.204 Oh, that's even better. 00:05:32.204 --> 00:05:35.305 That's awesome actually, that's way better the Zone, Czar man. 00:05:35.625 --> 00:05:36.088 Why isn't that? 00:05:36.108 --> 00:05:36.891 in your bio. 00:05:36.891 --> 00:05:39.528 I don't know if Czar is politically correct anymore, but yeah. 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:49.747 We're talking about stuff I haven't really got given any thought to in about 20, 20 odd years, but um, yeah, that's what I was referred to. 00:05:49.807 --> 00:05:50.149 The zones are. 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:56.273 Don't be surprised if that shows up in the podcast art well, go for it, man paul rupert zones are. 00:05:56.915 --> 00:06:03.071 Then you got into the telecommunications world and uh, we have a little bit exposure that here in cincinnati with uh, cincinnati bell. 00:06:03.071 --> 00:06:15.067 It was kind of an independent thing for a while there and they they branched out a company called broadwing, I remember for a while, yeah, and uh, yeah, we kind of had everything here by ourselves, like we had cincinnati gas and electric, we had our own water thing we had. 00:06:15.067 --> 00:06:25.213 We were like self-sufficient here for a while and then everything got bought out, like duke came in and bought out, uh, or synergy came in and then du, duke came in and bought out Cincinnati Gas and Electric. 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:27.447 Yeah, Within, like three years, of the purchase. 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.048 Yeah, I think Cincinnati Bell might be owned by somebody now too. 00:06:30.920 --> 00:06:39.288 Well, Cincinnati Bell probably has been wrapped up under the umbrella of what is now AT&T, which is the old SBC Southwestern Bell Corporation. 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:40.572 Yeah, that's right. 00:06:40.819 --> 00:06:44.605 But oddly enough, uh, back to the messaging business business. 00:06:44.605 --> 00:06:55.831 I got pulled into an opportunity, which was inside a startup relating to messaging SMS, and the solution was essentially making SMS interoperable. 00:06:55.831 --> 00:07:04.793 What that means is that originally SMS was just native, meaning restricted to GSM radio formats. 00:07:04.793 --> 00:07:22.043 So in civilian speak, that means that SMS was really running on T-Mobile US, but nothing else, because Verizon and AT&T Blue, as we used to call it back then, were using different types of radio formats and this company that I became involved in. 00:07:22.043 --> 00:07:36.531 We were able to create a technology that allowed you to send text messages between and among CDMA, tdma, all the non-GSM radio formats, and Cincinnati Bell was one of those targets of ours. 00:07:36.531 --> 00:07:38.927 I had a friend who was one of my colleagues. 00:07:38.927 --> 00:07:44.644 He handled domestic sales, I handled international sales, so I built it out from scratch. 00:07:44.644 --> 00:07:48.014 Sales I handled international sales, so I built it out from scratch. 00:07:48.014 --> 00:07:55.278 Five years later, talking about capitalism and how you're able to leverage opportunity, we sold the company for about a half a billion dollars Wow. 00:07:55.298 --> 00:08:02.773 Nice oh wow, literally scratch to about 160 million in revenues and sold it for 487,. 00:08:02.812 --> 00:08:05.884 as I recall, geez, wow, see, you got to love it, man, you got000,. 00:08:05.884 --> 00:08:07.468 As I recall, jeez, wow, see, you got to love it, man, you got to love it. 00:08:07.468 --> 00:08:08.370 You

build something. 00:08:08.370 --> 00:08:15.214 And then it's cool because then anytime you see your stuff being used or somebody brings it up, you're just thinking to yourself like man. 00:08:15.214 --> 00:08:18.101 I remember the early days when it was just like two or three guys sitting around a table. 00:08:19.103 --> 00:08:19.624 You got it. 00:08:19.624 --> 00:08:23.228 Yeah, Even in the sense that I have two. 00:08:23.228 --> 00:08:28.273 I'm a co-author of two of the patents that we developed while I was there. 00:08:28.273 --> 00:08:30.855 There you go, and they're still in play today. 00:08:30.855 --> 00:08:35.428 Nice, you're like Qualcomm and the company that we created. 00:08:35.428 --> 00:08:36.071 I helped sell. 00:08:36.071 --> 00:08:38.168 I was part of the management team when we sold the company. 00:08:38.168 --> 00:08:48.527 That company has been acquired twice and is now part of a Swedish firm that does about $2.8 billion in revenues using the same technology platforms. 00:08:49.389 --> 00:08:50.490 So this isn't just a. 00:08:50.490 --> 00:09:07.845 So you see, some of these startups, they, you know, they scale up, they sell and they're in some like you look at it and you're like, oh, especially with these AI ones, right, they're just repackaging, uh, chat GBT, like they're using chat GBT but they're putting a different front end on it and giving it a specific purpose. 00:09:07.845 --> 00:09:17.514 But it's really, they didn't build anything, they just figured out a way to remarket it as a niche of this large language model. 00:09:17.514 --> 00:09:22.307 So there's businesses like that and then there's businesses like yours, where you actually have to understand the technology. 00:09:23.779 --> 00:09:25.166 Yeah, we had to understand the technology. 00:09:25.166 --> 00:09:26.225 There's no question about that. 00:09:26.225 --> 00:09:30.851 The two founders came up with the opportunity. 00:09:30.851 --> 00:09:51.307 But I will say this that in most cases, from my own experience in developing innovation within the mobile technology world, many times there are these green shoots that occur where the technology aspect is being developed by a number of different companies at the same time, and that's exactly what we discovered. 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:58.933 Again, my responsibility when I came into the company was to take it to an international opportunity. 00:10:00.061 --> 00:10:12.669 A friend of mine who was a venture capitalist, who was giving them a term sheet, said they don't understand this yet, but there's going to be more opportunities offshore than there are on offshore, and they were just focusing on the domestic North American market. 00:10:12.669 --> 00:10:19.592 I agreed with them, put together a plan for the board and they were like, yeah, go do this. 00:10:19.592 --> 00:10:28.033 And in the end we went from you know, most startups are looking to go from zero to one, you know, minimal, viable product. 00:10:28.033 --> 00:10:42.971 Our perspective, which I had a pretty strong hand in developing, which was no, we're going from zero to a billion, because we were leveraging what are called network effects within the telecommunications world. 00:10:42.971 --> 00:10:54.019 The telecommunications system that we have is the most complicated, most comprehensive machine man has ever made, because it's always changing and it touches practically everyone on Earth. 00:10:54.019 --> 00:11:07.162 In fact, there are many places on Earth where it's easier to reach out to a mobile phone than there is to find fresh water, almost like Coke, which is a Coke within grasp of everyone on the planet. 00:11:07.582 --> 00:11:12.702 Yeah, I think yesterday proved how just invaluable it is everyday life now for everybody. 00:11:13.043 --> 00:11:14.729 Oh, no question, yeah, no question. 00:11:14.729 --> 00:11:17.961 And relative to your comment about AI, it's funny. 00:11:17.961 --> 00:11:25.625 I've got a good friend who I've known for about 20 years and, ironically, he runs a podcast consulting company. 00:11:25.625 --> 00:11:29.325 He developed this around eight years ago, so he was way ahead of the curve. 00:11:29.325 --> 00:11:33.724 But guess what his undergraduate degree is in Artificial intelligence. 00:11:33.724 --> 00:11:35.721 Oh, okay, okay. 00:11:35.721 --> 00:11:38.529 And he didn't get it just last year, he got it 25 years ago. 00:11:38.941 --> 00:11:45.791 What, yeah, wow, yeah, you know, the reality of AI is there have been even in the AI community. 00:11:45.791 --> 00:12:01.471 This is something that I've I've worked with and had to come up to speed on because of the nature of the AI being applied to both routing and security, relative to your text messaging being able to be delivered and sent all around the world sent all around the world. 00:12:01.471 --> 00:12:10.917 But, as he puts it to me, when he got out of college, they were suggesting well, we're not sure what you can do, but maybe you should go teach English in Japan. 00:12:10.917 --> 00:12:23.562 And then he explained to me, as we got in the last few years relative to AI and the emergence, that there have been two winters, which is essentially the hype cycle of artificial intelligence. 00:12:24.144 --> 00:12:35.652 I don't know if you've ever seen the Gartner hype cycle but, there's literally this thing called the trough of disillusionment and he said you know, there've been two troughs, two winters of disillusionment in AI over the years. 00:12:35.652 --> 00:12:38.288 One was in the seventies and again in the nineties. 00:12:38.288 --> 00:12:45.539 You know, it really comes down to how much processing power was available to be able to conduct artificial intelligence. 00:12:45.539 --> 00:12:56.653 We're finally being able to converge the lines between the artificial processing, the intelligence aspect of it, and the processing power capabilities in computers. 00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:59.854 Which is why

NVIDIA is worth so much money and why their earnings came out yesterday. 00:12:59.854 --> 00:13:02.604 That's right $325 billion overnight. 00:13:02.604 --> 00:13:03.707 That's just insane. 00:13:03.707 --> 00:13:04.750 It's because of earnings. 00:13:05.160 --> 00:13:06.788 Nobody's seen that before they made a Netflix. 00:13:06.788 --> 00:13:10.169 Nobody's seen that type of growth Evaluation, netflix overnight it's insane, it's insane. 00:13:10.541 --> 00:13:11.062 I mean, it's what? 00:13:11.062 --> 00:13:11.924 $2 billion now. 00:13:13.590 --> 00:13:15.374 Yeah, and what if? 00:13:15.374 --> 00:13:15.919 Scenarios? 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:21.849 I met Sam Altman, who's now the CEO of ChatGPT. 00:13:21.849 --> 00:13:23.270 Openai. 00:13:23.270 --> 00:13:32.249 And this was almost 20 years ago and he was just starting a business in Silicon Valley and he was a young guy back then. 00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:33.745 He used to lecture at Harvard, didn't he? 00:13:33.745 --> 00:13:35.847 Was it Harvard he lectured at, or was it Stanford? 00:13:36.539 --> 00:13:37.664 He's a very smart guy. 00:13:37.664 --> 00:13:44.650 Like I say, he was in his early 20s and at the time I was probably in my late 30s thinking damn, that guy is sharp. 00:13:44.671 --> 00:13:46.861 Yeah, well, that guy is sharp, yeah, yeah, well, you have to be. 00:13:46.861 --> 00:13:47.764 I mean to build. 00:13:47.764 --> 00:13:58.581 You know a company that essentially changed the game, and now they got all these other companies scrambling to try to figure out how to incorporate AI into any product that they have, and that's one of the reasons. 00:13:58.581 --> 00:14:00.182 You know the processing power, the. 00:14:00.182 --> 00:14:03.567 You know it's always the plumbing of these things that do really well. 00:14:03.567 --> 00:14:11.496 We saw it on the Internet with Cisco, with EMC, with all these companies that were the, the, the plumbing of the Internet. 00:14:11.496 --> 00:14:13.606 Those are the ones that end up doing really well too. 00:14:13.606 --> 00:14:14.966 You know the picks and shovels, right. 00:14:15.899 --> 00:14:17.881 Correct, and all these companies. 00:14:17.881 --> 00:14:37.979 I have to admit that I am in line Behind that or, if you will, that same line right now, because even yesterday on LinkedIn, I published an article no, it was this morning converging disaster relief and the application utilization of AI and chatbots in a disaster relief scenario. 00:14:37.979 --> 00:14:39.760 Oh, interesting. 00:14:39.760 --> 00:14:47.996 Yeah, I wanted to do something outside of the box, so have you done anything with blockchain tech and critical infrastructure? 00:14:49.226 --> 00:15:08.937 I know blockchain because for a long time, probably about three to five years ago at that time frame, blockchain became, let's say, prominent as a potential technology in mobile communications and mobile messaging, primarily because of routing and security issues. 00:15:08.937 --> 00:15:12.792 But this was back in the gosh. 00:15:12.792 --> 00:15:13.653 What are they? 00:15:13.653 --> 00:15:19.613 The different type of financing oh, an OC instead of a VC. 00:15:20.394 --> 00:15:21.236 Oh, okay, yeah. 00:15:22.166 --> 00:15:49.732 I'm blocking on the wording, but there were all these companies and ironically they were all Russian companies that were saying that this should be applied in a mobile messaging context, which would have disassembled the network and put the power of messaging solutions meaning it being sent from your handset which meant that you know that you were essentially disrupting the mobile network operator out of the equation. 00:15:49.974 --> 00:15:54.404 This was all in theory, and somehow these guys were saying this is a better way of doing things. 00:15:54.404 --> 00:16:15.918 Well, years ago, when I worked for a mobile network operator that we now know as AT&T back then it was called Southwestern Bell I was in a presentation once by the CEO and he was like if you go back to the days of AT&T and copper investment, it's a little over $60 trillion have been invested over the last century in telecommunications. 00:16:15.918 --> 00:16:26.976 So when you start playing with entities with 60, have the capabilities to invest $60 trillion over a hundred years, you better be damn sure you're going to beat them. 00:16:26.976 --> 00:16:34.932 You know, if you touch the king, make sure you kill him, and those ideas never got any traction, so that's why I exposed your blockchain. 00:16:35.424 --> 00:16:44.989 Well, because I saw on your bio too, you had a lot of, like, cryptography experience and I thought you know, oh well, cryptography, blockchain, blockchain uses cryptography Well yeah, interesting. 00:16:45.028 --> 00:16:46.279 Oh well, cryptography, blockchain blockchain uses cryptography. 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:46.784 Well, yeah, interesting. 00:16:46.784 --> 00:16:51.855 Recently I've started to look into quantum computing. 00:16:51.855 --> 00:16:58.298 Oh yeah, and that was just again one of these things as to what's the capability, that's just over the horizon. 00:16:58.298 --> 00:17:17.997 This is kind of the realm that I'm involved in back to, either as an executive in these various companies or as a consultant back to the industry is looking at harvesting innovation within a real-time basis, and what I mean by that is, you know, you don't turn innovation into a product or a service overnight. 00:17:17.997 --> 00:17:22.352 Usually it takes about three years if you've got a good cycle on that. 00:17:22.352 --> 00:17:29.645 So that's the window of operation that I work in cycle on that. 00:17:29.645 --> 00:17:30.930 So that's the window of operation that I work in. 00:17:30.930 --> 00:17:38.090 And I came across somebody that I was talking to about quantum computing and ironically it was in a bar and it was a woman who had been a former CIA agent. 00:17:38.571 --> 00:17:46.034 So, she ran agents for the

Central Intelligence Agency and we were talking about stuff and this is for this is a sidebar to your question. 00:17:46.034 --> 00:17:51.996 But there's an entity called NSIN and NSIN stands for National Security Innovation Network. 00:17:51.996 --> 00:18:06.213 So it's a loose affiliation of executives, tech geeks, cyber specialists as well as those who are involved in the intelligence community, and that kind of caught my interest in. 00:18:06.213 --> 00:18:10.675 Recently I did a podcast on this, on quantum computing. 00:18:10.675 --> 00:18:17.499 A friend of mine who runs a different podcast entity called oh gosh, I think it's called Passages. 00:18:17.499 --> 00:18:18.529 I'll send you a link for it. 00:18:18.529 --> 00:18:20.765 So we were talking about quantum computing. 00:18:20.765 --> 00:18:28.538 So the whole idea is how do you apply these various types of developing technologies to the telecommunications network on a global basis? 00:18:28.538 --> 00:18:31.053 And that's kind of the realm that I occupy now. 00:18:31.505 --> 00:18:33.794 Isn't Peter Thiel like a big dog with the incense? 00:18:33.794 --> 00:18:39.115 I think it's something along the lines of basically, you do like facial recognition and everything like that often. 00:18:39.435 --> 00:18:40.017 I don't know. 00:18:40.017 --> 00:18:40.679 It's the same thing. 00:18:40.679 --> 00:18:47.596 I wouldn't doubt it now at this point, like facial recognition is becoming a thing, yeah, yeah, I doubt it now at this point, like facial recognition is becoming a thing. 00:18:47.615 --> 00:18:49.679 Yeah yeah, that's another arena that I've had some exposure to. 00:18:49.679 --> 00:18:57.588 A board member of a company that I consulted to actually runs and started a facial recognition company. 00:18:57.588 --> 00:19:02.838 I'll send you a link on literally a blog post I wrote about five years ago on facial recognition being utilized by MasterCard. 00:19:07.067 --> 00:19:10.353 Basically what I'm getting out of this conversation is don't piss off, paul, no, I just. 00:19:10.353 --> 00:19:11.935 I used to know some really important people but no more. 00:19:11.935 --> 00:19:13.578 I love it. 00:19:13.578 --> 00:19:14.160 I love it. 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:16.507 Well, I mean, you've done so much. 00:19:16.507 --> 00:19:20.477 I mean, in a way, you could almost be considered like a futurist because you've done so much. 00:19:20.477 --> 00:19:22.328 You've grown up in technology. 00:19:22.328 --> 00:19:30.113 You've grown up in one of the most complicated areas that we have, which telecommunications, and you've seen it mature Through the whole transition. 00:19:30.173 --> 00:19:34.951 Through the whole transition, but you've seen it mature into what we have now, and now it's starting to merge. 00:19:34.951 --> 00:19:38.613 Ai is starting to become a piece of all of these different industries. 00:19:38.613 --> 00:19:39.494 Yeah, it's all conflating. 00:19:39.494 --> 00:19:40.457 It is no question about that. 00:19:40.457 --> 00:19:40.798 It is. 00:19:50.265 --> 00:20:09.730 Even in the space that you know, the traditional space, the traditional label for the space that I'm involved in is called communications platforms as a service, and what that translates into is essentially combining text, data, voice and video all into one package, and the capability to be able to integrate that so that a consumer experience would be seamless going across these platforms, if you wanted it to be. 00:20:10.391 --> 00:20:22.105 It's essentially ensuring that a consumer would be able to send a text anytime, on any platform, of any choice they may have, and getting a resolution out of it. 00:20:22.105 --> 00:20:38.176 And then that leads into another arena called conversational commerce, which is essentially, how do you leverage telecommunications platforms meaning the communications piece, conversational piece into various types of commercial opportunities. 00:20:38.924 --> 00:20:39.939 That's unbelievable man. 00:20:39.939 --> 00:20:40.345 You've got some. 00:20:40.464 --> 00:20:44.433 And it's only restricted by your creativity and ingenuity. 00:20:44.954 --> 00:20:56.674 That's really what it comes down to I feel like we're kindred spirits, because I started with atari and then I transitioned through the whole nintendo, sega, genesis and now I can do super awesome avatars on online gaming. 00:20:56.674 --> 00:21:01.651 So I I feel like I that's a great riff. 00:21:01.991 --> 00:21:02.973 I know what's kyle doing. 00:21:02.973 --> 00:21:04.377 What's he doing on his podcast. 00:21:04.377 --> 00:21:06.531 He's like under utilizing his talents right now. 00:21:06.551 --> 00:21:07.233 It's the delivery. 00:21:07.233 --> 00:21:08.711 I'll put everybody to sleep with my voice. 00:21:09.266 --> 00:21:09.847 Well, there's that. 00:21:09.847 --> 00:21:14.569 Yeah, maybe you just write and I'll go up there and do it and I'll get people hyped up and you just write all the stuff. 00:21:14.589 --> 00:21:19.073 See, I've been doing dad jokes with the slow delivery and I even want to talk about pissing people off. 00:21:19.073 --> 00:21:22.276 Like politics, you Talk about religion. 00:21:22.556 --> 00:21:22.796 Yeah. 00:21:23.115 --> 00:21:24.557 Yeah, you do dad jokes all day. 00:21:24.557 --> 00:21:25.858 People want to kill you. 00:21:29.102 --> 00:21:32.201 This is Kyle's life now, so we're going to get him. 00:21:32.201 --> 00:21:32.664 Eventually. 00:21:32.664 --> 00:21:35.153 He's going to be on stage, We'll get him up there, Don't worry. 00:21:35.153 --> 00:21:35.885 So. 00:21:35.885 --> 00:21:37.132 Trends in cybersecurity. 00:21:37.132 --> 00:21:38.588 So I just had this. 00:21:38.588 --> 00:21:40.355 I was watching. 00:21:40.355 --> 00:21:47.296 I watch a lot of YouTube videos and you know, try to break down what's happening in the world all the time and I stay up till I don't know. 00:21:47.296 --> 00:21:55.924 Last night, I think I went to bed

at five 30 in the morning, but this is my life. 00:21:55.924 --> 00:22:00.171 If you look at my aura ring thing, like my wife got me this thing to just show me how bad I am, and uh, and I still run like a couple of miles a day. 00:22:00.230 --> 00:22:08.441 So like I've got that and I don't sleep but I'm looking at AI and cybersecurity now as an investment. 00:22:08.441 --> 00:22:12.035 So they're like a crowd strike type of company. 00:22:12.035 --> 00:22:27.163 Sure, these types of things and I noticed that you do you know you're talking cybersecurity, intelligence, things like that yeah, but with your background and then being able to kind of foresee what's going on, this sounds like these types of companies are like the next wave. 00:22:27.163 --> 00:22:30.813 These are the next ones to start getting attention from Wall Street. 00:22:30.853 --> 00:22:37.257 Well, I guess I should now read the disclaimer that you should not be making taking any information as investment. 00:22:37.297 --> 00:22:39.131 Oh, yeah, this is not investment advice, guys. 00:22:39.131 --> 00:22:41.740 This is all speculation. 00:22:41.819 --> 00:22:45.028 But if you ever listen to us speak knows, not to you know. 00:22:45.628 --> 00:22:56.488 I would guess that I look at myself more as a projector of an opportunity as opposed to a prognosticator, just being able to see. 00:22:56.488 --> 00:23:13.648 You know, I coined a term once called innovationeering, coined a term once called innovation earring, and the objective behind this is essentially, as you see, an opportunity that might be interesting once you might file it away and go oh, that's kind of an interesting thing. 00:23:13.648 --> 00:23:20.758 The second time you see it, then all of a sudden you know your nerves flash as to hold on a second. 00:23:20.758 --> 00:23:22.748 Let's look at this third time. 00:23:22.748 --> 00:23:24.932 If you've seen it, then it's too late. 00:23:24.951 --> 00:23:26.694 Look at this third time, If you've seen it then it's too late. 00:23:26.714 --> 00:23:39.515 And so the cyber piece cyber is such a wide, widely defined and loose term because there's so many aspects of cybersecurity I've been involved in. 00:23:39.515 --> 00:23:50.073 Quote cybersecurity through network, security of mobile telecommunications networks Now, if you were talking to a traditional cybersecurity guy, he goes no, no, that's not cybersecurity. 00:23:50.073 --> 00:23:51.989 So that's you know. 00:23:51.989 --> 00:23:56.712 I would probably say that's a little bit, we've jumped the shark, or we're a little. 00:23:56.712 --> 00:24:01.750 You know, we're a step behind On the AI piece. 00:24:01.750 --> 00:24:10.392 I think we're right in the midst of that transition and the markets are starting to recognize the potential impact and making that bet. 00:24:10.392 --> 00:24:13.598 But not all bets come to pass, do they? 00:24:13.598 --> 00:24:18.992 That's why I say we're in this transition arena, this transition period. 00:24:18.992 --> 00:24:27.357 Maybe it's year two of Microsoft or something like that, whatever might be akin to that, or the second year Google's involved in it. 00:24:27.357 --> 00:24:29.487 That would be. 00:24:29.487 --> 00:24:34.438 My caution is to you know, make sure that you're at the right time at the right place. 00:24:35.365 --> 00:24:50.767 Yeah Well, I mean and speaking of that, I mean you advise private equity and like you said here, you know private equity, more competition, I mean anybody can kind of just. 00:24:50.767 --> 00:24:53.236 I mean you don't even have to have a series seven to open like a fund a lot of times like it's. 00:24:53.236 --> 00:24:53.877 It's pretty wild, probably not. 00:24:53.877 --> 00:24:54.520 The barrier to entry is pretty. 00:24:54.520 --> 00:24:57.549 The bar to entry is pretty low, uh, but you could like it's all of those people's money. 00:24:57.609 --> 00:25:00.965 You know that's what it comes down to on that part but that's how you get wealthy. 00:25:01.066 --> 00:25:02.087 Like I tell people all the time. 00:25:02.087 --> 00:25:03.671 It's like dude, you get wealthy. 00:25:03.671 --> 00:25:05.855 You start a fund Like just it's other people's money. 00:25:05.855 --> 00:25:07.458 You get say it's a two and 20. 00:25:07.478 --> 00:25:08.398 It's two percent or whatever. 00:25:08.398 --> 00:25:10.633 Yeah, you got two percent every year, yeah, and you close it out. 00:25:10.704 --> 00:25:13.353 You get 20 percent of the profits and you didn't even do any money. 00:25:13.353 --> 00:25:14.015 You did a little work. 00:25:16.667 --> 00:25:18.711 And the carryover is how you get wealthy. 00:25:18.711 --> 00:25:31.878 That's it Lived in a company that got acquired by the Carlyle Group, oh yeah, and we recognized that about five years out there was a very large bill coming due. 00:25:31.878 --> 00:25:33.109 Let's just put it that way. 00:25:33.109 --> 00:25:39.217 But interestingly enough, that company just got rolled over and rolled over, and rolled over by Carlyle. 00:25:39.217 --> 00:25:53.013 But in other cases where I've been involved in that I've been involved in advising on a potential acquisition that it was in the space and they wanted somebody who had the commercial acumen and experience of the messaging business. 00:25:53.605 --> 00:26:03.674 And in that regard the bottom line was, if we buy it, we got to be able to strip it apart or we got to be able to polish it up really quickly and turn it around. 00:26:03.674 --> 00:26:05.388 That was kind of the guidance, let's say in layman's speak. 00:26:05.388 --> 00:26:07.675 And in the end we recognized that that wasn't going to be able to polish it up really quickly and turn it around. 00:26:07.675 --> 00:26:12.132 That was kind of the guidance, let's say in in layman's speak, um, and in the end we recognized that that wasn't going to be possible, so we walked away from the deal. 00:26:12.132 --> 00:26:13.175 Wow. 00:26:13.237 -->

00:26:14.320 And that was you know. 00:26:14.320 --> 00:26:17.971 What was on the table was about a half a billion dollars is what they were asking for it. 00:26:17.971 --> 00:26:20.797 Yeah, it was a good gig. 00:26:20.797 --> 00:26:24.189 You know golden crumbs, Exactly. 00:26:26.272 --> 00:26:26.792 Oh I love it. 00:26:26.814 --> 00:26:27.615 Those are the best guys. 00:26:27.694 --> 00:26:28.736 Okay, when can you start? 00:26:28.736 --> 00:26:31.320 Right, exactly, exactly. 00:26:31.805 --> 00:26:38.670 My father-in-law's cousin was was he a vice chairman of global buyout for the Carlisle group for a little while? 00:26:39.730 --> 00:26:40.711 Oh wow, your father-in-law. 00:26:40.991 --> 00:26:42.232 No, no, no, my father-in-law's cousin. 00:26:43.013 --> 00:26:44.013 Oh, okay, greg. 00:26:44.013 --> 00:26:45.454 Summers I was going to say what are you doing here, man? 00:26:45.454 --> 00:26:45.816 I? 00:26:46.195 --> 00:26:49.137 don't know, you probably have a job with him, making more money than you're making now. 00:26:49.979 --> 00:26:51.220 Yeah, no, no, no. 00:26:51.220 --> 00:26:52.240 My father-in-law's a doctor. 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:54.862 He's very successful in that, but he's not a businessman. 00:26:59.805 --> 00:27:03.592 My dad definitely was not a business guy, greg, though very good at business yeah, I, I would say so to be involved with them. 00:27:03.592 --> 00:27:10.414 So who do you help now, like I mean, you've got all this stuff, what's your target? 00:27:10.414 --> 00:27:12.345 Who are you trying to work with you? 00:27:12.365 --> 00:27:14.311 know I wish it was so linear, to be honest. 00:27:14.472 --> 00:27:14.933 It's so hard. 00:27:15.045 --> 00:27:40.307 The reality is that, you know, I've consulted to everything from Facebook, western Union, wells Fargo, mastercard, to small companies that you would have never heard of, or even large companies that you would have never heard of, or even large companies that you would have never heard of, and, most recently, because of my understanding of the messaging business globally as well as in North America, a customer care as a service provider. 00:27:40.307 --> 00:27:45.836 There's actually a term called CCAS, and it's all about customer experience. 00:27:45.836 --> 00:28:03.951 They had been utilizing text messaging as a major component of their offering to their customers, which were primarily enterprises, the likes of which included medium-sized insurance companies, credit unions, retail outlets, things of that nature, small credit card companies, etc. 00:28:03.951 --> 00:28:09.760 Things of that nature, small credit card companies, et cetera. 00:28:09.760 --> 00:28:10.643 They got fired by Twilio. 00:28:10.643 --> 00:28:13.768 Oh, and what does that translate into? 00:28:13.768 --> 00:28:22.140 Well, there are specific regulations that you have to adhere to relative to the types of messaging that are delivered to inside North America. 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:25.088

You've got to be able to opt in to certain types of messages Inside North America. 00:28:25.088 --> 00:28:27.232 You've got to be able to opt into certain types of messages, and they hadn't. 00:28:27.232 --> 00:28:49.660 You know, to be honest, they weren't as tuned into the business as they should have been, and some of their customers were running traffic that was essentially not authorized was forbidden traffic, and that's why Twilio said well, no, we're tightening up our regulatory practices because of the other things we were talking about earlier in terms of their profitability, etc. 00:28:49.660 --> 00:28:53.592 And they got a 30-day notice. 00:28:53.952 --> 00:29:10.147 And then I got a call and, oddly enough, I got the gig primarily because one of their sales VPs had heard me speak on an analyst call where the analyst asked me to essentially give an overview of the CPaaS world, that communications platforms as a service world. 00:29:10.147 --> 00:29:23.564 And that's how I ended up being brought in and spent six months embedded into the company helping them navigate through getting reconnected into the messaging business. 00:29:23.564 --> 00:29:32.221 The first thing we did was ask for another 30 days, which we were able to get that, so that we have maneuverability to be able to decide okay, who do we want to go to next? 00:29:32.221 --> 00:29:40.384 And then I opened the doors to get those things done quickly and to make sure that they tightened up their product operations. 00:29:40.384 --> 00:29:53.782 So they were fully compliant and the reality of the text messaging world is that it is an industry, regulated business, so it's not like the FCC is out there through their enforcement division sending out missives. 00:29:53.782 --> 00:29:59.071 It's a matter of the FCC recognizes that they have to look out for the public interest. 00:29:59.792 --> 00:30:21.699 So the dynamics of what is allowable in text messaging is done through industry trade associations like, excuse me, the Cellular Telephone Internet Association, as well as essentially private contracts between the mobile network operators and the entities that are called aggregators, who connect directly to the mobile network operators, and the entities that are called aggregators, who connect directly to the mobile network operators. 00:30:21.699 --> 00:30:26.240 And we're not talking about hundreds of these, we're talking only about three in the US. 00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:42.438 But there are thousands of aggregators that are bringing together different types of businesses in this type of message flow going to these direct carrier aggregators those three that I mentioned, two of which I've worked at and one that I consulted to, and that's what I did. 00:30:42.438 --> 00:30:45.450 So that's kind of what I do today, you know. 00:30:45.470 --> 00:31:04.473 And before that, well, that was a due diligence that I did for the National Bank of Kuwait's private equity arm, and there too it was a matter of we're looking to make a $40 million investment into a Middle Eastern CPAS provider and we'd like somebody to. 00:31:04.473 --> 00:31:11.992 The reality is, I'm the one who ensures that nobody's calling the bullshit card In the sense that no, that's not. 00:31:11.992 --> 00:31:22.617 These claims for opportunity or projections of potentiality are a little off, either by magnitudes, or they're pretty on target. 00:31:22.898 --> 00:31:41.578 Whatever it might be, I think they probably want to just take your brain, create an AI out of it for the telecommunications industry and just ask it questions there are so many people that I work with that they're all smart, but they're smart in different ways, and I have been able to find the niche where I can. 00:31:41.710 --> 00:31:43.396 And I'll be very candid with you. 00:31:43.396 --> 00:31:57.227 I think much of this is due to the fact of my prior experience in the political world, that I can articulate conceptualities and take the complexities and simplify them so that they're easily understood. 00:32:00.131 --> 00:32:00.893 Yeah, and that's a good. 00:32:00.893 --> 00:32:03.199 No, I say like this is gonna sound terrible. 00:32:03.199 --> 00:32:07.698 So if you want to, not if you want to warn everybody about this, it's a second. 00:32:07.698 --> 00:32:13.784 But I've been around a lot of very intelligent people like neurosurgeons and things, that people that ilk. 00:32:13.784 --> 00:32:29.962 They're touching the spectrum on like the like special, special side of just incredibly brilliant, but they lack the ability for communication, they lack the ability to understand that they have an audience and they're not connecting to that audience at all. 00:32:29.962 --> 00:32:43.226 So be able to touch those points, that side of the spectrum where all the brilliance happens and dictate it to people that are normal like us but they have all the intelligence, where all the brilliance happens and dictated to people that are like normal like us but they have all the money, is invaluable, I think. 00:32:43.490 --> 00:32:49.361 Absolutely yeah, and that's, you know, in whether I fell into this or this was just kind of destiny. 00:32:49.361 --> 00:32:52.297 I look at it as sometimes you know we didn't. 00:32:52.297 --> 00:32:56.741 I've alluded to my experience in international markets. 00:32:56.741 --> 00:33:00.161 I think much of that is due a I happen to be half French. 00:33:00.161 --> 00:33:09.080 My mother used to start dragging me to Europe when I was five years old, and so I had a different perspective on other parts of the world than you know. 00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:12.410 The guys that I played with on my street in Rocky River, ohio sometimes. 00:33:12.611 --> 00:33:14.458 Where did your mom used to drag you when you were five, Adam? 00:33:16.010 --> 00:33:18.078 We used to travel a little bit, but not to France. 00:33:18.289 --> 00:33:19.596 I used to get drug up the hilltop.

00:33:19.596 --> 00:33:28.480 Dad would give us a quarter so we could have a couple of beers at the bar, so we could play the Pac-Man, my dad would take me to the Yellow Submarine up in Clifton and he would drink and we would play darts. 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:29.080 We didn't. 00:33:29.622 --> 00:33:30.344 So how was France. 00:33:31.891 --> 00:33:33.473 So France, what did that give you? 00:33:33.473 --> 00:33:38.763 Like that, just you knew there were somewhere, there were bigger places than Rocky River. 00:33:38.849 --> 00:33:48.096 Well, the first day, I was in France, I think it was, yeah, just about the first day I was in a fight, primarily because A I didn't speak French that well, and second because I was an American. 00:33:48.096 --> 00:33:54.875 Yeah, good for you and you were from Cleveland, so but that kind of opened things up in terms of hey, there's a difference in terms of the world. 00:33:54.875 --> 00:33:57.640 Thankfully I had my french cousin to be able to save my ass. 00:33:58.340 --> 00:34:00.964 Um, but you're from cleveland, man, you're like representing like. 00:34:00.964 --> 00:34:02.913 You're like look, you don't know where I'm from. 00:34:02.913 --> 00:34:10.422 I'm not just from regular america, I'm from cleveland, bro, like from cleveland yeah, the hard streets of rocky river ohio. 00:34:10.422 --> 00:34:13.371 Oh yeah, yeah well, there are some hard streets in cleveland. 00:34:13.371 --> 00:34:16.097 Now like indeed yes indeed there are. 00:34:17.300 --> 00:34:23.277 You know, to answer that question, that came into play primarily. 00:34:23.277 --> 00:34:35.798 So I got into the mobile telecommunications business primarily because there were these operators that were starting up and they were called GSM operators and there were seven that started around 1996. 00:34:35.798 --> 00:34:45.771 And I fell into a network of people that, through my connections with the cabinet secretary, he introduced me to a venture capitalist. 00:34:45.771 --> 00:34:55.143 And then I ended up finding out that there was an opportunity that I wanted to get out of the political world and that I fit, and that was a company called Pacific Bell Mobile Services. 00:34:55.143 --> 00:34:58.980 Now the reality of that is this was Dodge City back then. 00:34:59.190 --> 00:35:04.001 And when I say Dodge City, I came into the interview and the interview was doing very well. 00:35:04.001 --> 00:35:16.304 They were looking into my experience in business development and, as I said earlier, I was, let's say, transmogrifying political experience and running political campaigns into the reality of startups. 00:35:16.304 --> 00:35:18.135 And they bought the line. 00:35:18.135 --> 00:35:27.655 But one of the things that I said to them was I don't know anything about the technology and how this works, and the guy who was interviewing me was like I don't know how it works either. 00:35:27.655 --> 00:35:29.827 I came from Sega, my boss came from Sega. 00:35:30.369 --> 00:35:32.378 Oh, I wanted to work for Sega at one point. 00:35:32.438 --> 00:35:33.000 Yeah, yeah. 00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:35.353 So you know, this was the dynamic. 00:35:35.353 --> 00:35:53.152 It was in Silicon Valley, it was in California and near San Francisco, and within about six months my job got eliminated, meaning the job that I came in for. 00:35:53.152 --> 00:35:57.414 I was setting up kiosks for handset rentals, so that if you were getting off a plane from London, you would be able to get one of our handsets and you would rent it. 00:35:57.414 --> 00:36:07.440 You would be able to get one of our handsets and you would rent it, because back then there was no interoperability, as we called it, between the two GSM radio formats, so one was in North America, the other one was in Europe, the rest of the world. 00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:10.081 And so what do we do? 00:36:10.081 --> 00:36:12.802 Here's the business opportunity let's start renting handsets. 00:36:12.802 --> 00:36:22.907 Paul, this is your first job, okay, well, within about eight months, motorola and others, the handset manufacturers, came up with a means to be able to make those handsets interoperable. 00:36:26.949 --> 00:36:46.173 And all of a sudden, I was looking for a new job inside the company and we got a new CEO just about at the same time, who had been a board member of a French-based company called SFR, which is also a mobile network operator in France, and the company that I worked for we owned 25% of it. 00:36:46.173 --> 00:36:54.081 It was Pacific Bell Mobile Services, as I said, and I was talking to him in a brown bag lunch and I said we have the 7th largest economy in the world but we only have 8 roaming partners. 00:36:54.081 --> 00:37:05.603 Meanwhile, belgium, if you go, talk to them like BelgaCom, because I knew the European market again because of my experience in France they have over 150. 00:37:05.603 --> 00:37:07.954 What do you think about that? 00:37:07.954 --> 00:37:09.739 He goes let me give some thought to that. 00:37:09.739 --> 00:37:13.458 The next day I was being tapped to become the international roaming director. 00:37:13.798 --> 00:37:14.440 What does that mean? 00:37:14.440 --> 00:37:43.039 I was responsible for negotiating now all the B2B agreements between our company and all the 1100 operators around the world and that part of my selling point to him was hey, you know, I've got an understanding and I've been looking at these various types of services that are being offered by SFR and France Telecom, belgacom, bix, et cetera all these orange in the UK, and I think we could steal them and then apply them here. 00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:47.237 And he was like yeah, I agree with you, and that's where we came to the agreement is to. 00:37:47.237 --> 00:37:48.474 I think you should take this job. 00:37:48.474 --> 00:37:49.518 You know, do this job. 00:37:50.552 --> 00:37:59.981 And I had no idea that job even existed but it did, and

so I then spent the next three years primarily on planes. 00:37:59.981 --> 00:38:14.514 My routine was two weeks in California, two weeks in Europe, two to three weeks in California, two weeks in Asia, and, by the time that I left the company about four years down, I traveled to around 60 countries around the world. 00:38:14.634 --> 00:38:17.036 Wow, good for you Wow that's awesome. 00:38:17.056 --> 00:38:33.309 So that ability to seamlessly swim in different streams, if you will, I think that was developed because of my experience going to first France and then my mother turned it into the European tour, so to speak, the Grand Tour. 00:38:33.449 --> 00:38:36.219 But that helped because I have a sister who's 11 years older. 00:38:36.811 --> 00:39:03.503 She got married to an army officer, so we were in Germany a lot and, but Italy, Czechoslovakia was probably the most exotic place I've been, was went to as a kid and since then, even when in the telecommunications space, telecommunications space I lived in China for nine months in 2005, completing a deal, and I think all that is due to the fact that even in the political world we didn't talk about this. 00:39:03.503 --> 00:39:11.059 But the best job you can ever have in politics is being what's called an advanced man, and what does an advanced man do? 00:39:11.059 --> 00:39:45.253 So you know, every time the president or cabinet secretaries have these various types of rallies, there are teams of people, usually about three to five people, that come in three to five days beforehand to make sure that everything is run up to snuff according to the standards and the levels of perfection that are required by advancing or an event with the president or the vice president or cabinet secretary and I was an advanced man and part of that is making sure you get what you want without pissing people off. 00:39:45.293 --> 00:39:46.253 There you go, there you go. 00:39:46.253 --> 00:39:48.536 Well, hey, I'm running for a county commissioner right now. 00:39:49.217 --> 00:39:55.384 Well, I could do one of the events if you'd like, and it would be run like a top, I assure you. 00:39:55.985 --> 00:39:57.065 I'd be afraid to even ask you. 00:39:57.065 --> 00:40:00.672 I mean, you seem way overqualified. 00:40:01.132 --> 00:40:02.172 You got to start somewhere. 00:40:02.172 --> 00:40:04.014 I mean, I started on congressional races. 00:40:04.014 --> 00:40:18.206 As I said earlier, my original background in terms of running campaigns I ran a house race in Iowa and then I ran a Senate race in Ohio and we were running against John Glenn at the time. 00:40:18.206 --> 00:40:27.960 Oh yeah, and the great irony there is, my father ran for Congress as a Democrat when I was a child I was about six years old. 00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:32.315 But I also have a second cousin who worked for Senator Glenn and the two campaign. 00:40:32.315 --> 00:40:37.498 I was the deputy campaign manager of the other team and meanwhile the campaign

manager of Senator Glenn. 00:40:37.498 --> 00:40:38.690 He meanwhile the campaign manager of senator glenn. 00:40:38.690 --> 00:40:44.744 He was a gentleman named rupert rupert who's just recently retired as being a judge. 00:40:44.744 --> 00:40:50.963 So, um, you know, we had the family representing both sides of the the uh campaigns. 00:40:51.365 --> 00:40:52.791 Wow, do you ever say to get into his head? 00:40:52.791 --> 00:40:54.795 You know, I don't believe you guys landed on the moon. 00:40:54.795 --> 00:40:57.501 I'm not buying this moon landing. 00:40:57.690 --> 00:40:59.054 If you want to get punched in the stomach. 00:40:59.675 --> 00:41:00.177 Really Okay. 00:41:02.331 --> 00:41:03.516 Yeah, that would be wild. 00:41:03.516 --> 00:41:05.356 I just need money raising help. 00:41:05.376 --> 00:41:14.838 Buzz Aldrin, there are telescopes that actually you can see on the moon, where, like Friendship not Friendship 7, but where did they land? 00:41:14.929 --> 00:41:16.340 You can see the tracks and everything, yeah, but where did they land? 00:41:16.340 --> 00:41:17.188 What was the tracks and everything? 00:41:17.188 --> 00:41:17.349 Yeah. 00:41:17.650 --> 00:41:24.164 Yeah, you can see the actual, the flag remnants of the limb modules still on the earth. 00:41:24.164 --> 00:41:25.735 So how do you explain that one then? 00:41:25.735 --> 00:41:26.096 I'm not. 00:41:26.096 --> 00:41:26.797 No, no, no, no. 00:41:27.079 --> 00:41:31.329 I'm not doubting it, I'm just saying just to screw with the guy, like get him pissed off before. 00:41:31.329 --> 00:41:33.235 I can't think about how he's supposed to rally. 00:41:33.476 --> 00:41:34.661 I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 00:41:38.150 --> 00:41:38.411 Yeah to rally. 00:41:38.431 --> 00:41:41.068 I'm sorry, I'm sorry yeah that's the one guy you probably don't want to piss off Buzz Aldrin's, the one that would detonate people. 00:41:41.088 --> 00:41:45.436 Yeah, you know again the strangeness of life. 00:41:45.436 --> 00:41:50.836 I met Buzz Aldrin and I met John Glenn before he passed away. 00:41:50.836 --> 00:41:53.590 Oh, you met them both, Nice yeah. 00:41:54.134 --> 00:41:54.454 Nice. 00:41:55.269 --> 00:42:07.639 And, ironically, at the time I was what's called an independent executive director on a company that was a hair care company and Buzz Aldrin was at an event that was being put on by the CEO. 00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:11.014 Oh wow, yeah, we were at the same table. 00:42:11.615 --> 00:42:13.976 Man, and you met a lot of people, man. 00:42:13.976 --> 00:42:15.210 So what would you say? 00:42:15.251 --> 00:42:15.871 Why are you with us? 00:42:15.871 --> 00:42:19.114 I know why are you wasting your Friday afternoon with us. 00:42:19.135 --> 00:42:21.878 You meet a lot of people, so that's also part of this drill. 00:42:22.239 --> 00:42:23.500 I'm going to just tell everybody I met you. 00:42:23.500 --> 00:42:24.681 I know it's like why are you wasting? 00:42:24.701 --> 00:42:26.182 your time with us

on a Friday afternoon. 00:42:26.402 --> 00:42:29.907 You just increased our what is that Seven separation? 00:42:29.907 --> 00:42:35.338 Yeah, seven, I'm one degree away from Ronald Reagan. 00:42:35.358 --> 00:42:36.340 This is fantastic. 00:42:36.581 --> 00:42:38.423 Adam was on a podcast with Paul Rupert. 00:42:38.423 --> 00:42:39.996 Paul Rupert met Buzz Aldrin. 00:42:39.996 --> 00:42:41.853 This is what we're going to do. 00:42:41.853 --> 00:42:42.054 Let's see. 00:42:42.074 --> 00:42:42.717 Buzz Aldrin. 00:42:42.717 --> 00:42:46.617 I've met Bill Clinton, mrs Clinton, al Gore. 00:42:46.617 --> 00:42:49.092 That's a completely different event. 00:42:49.092 --> 00:42:54.534 But let's see Walter Mondale, john Glenn. 00:42:54.534 --> 00:43:01.340 As you mentioned earlier, I worked for Jack Danforth, jack Kemp. 00:43:01.960 --> 00:43:02.623 Let's see. 00:43:02.623 --> 00:43:04.813 I'm sure you met Bunning then. 00:43:04.813 --> 00:43:07.438 Right who Jim Bunning? 00:43:07.438 --> 00:43:10.235 Jim Bunning, I know of him. 00:43:10.416 --> 00:43:12.356 Yeah, he played for the Cleveland Indians. 00:43:12.356 --> 00:43:15.318 He was a congressman or a senator from Kentucky, as I recall. 00:43:15.318 --> 00:43:16.039 Yeah, he's from right here. 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:16.842 He was a senator. 00:43:17.190 --> 00:43:27.079 I just saw his daughter at church on sunday and we got a lot of people from ohio kentucky in politics a lot of abraham lincoln started mcconnell, uh. 00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:29.043 Vivek ramaswamy's from the west side. 00:43:29.063 --> 00:43:34.677 He's from my side of town oh really, yeah, I didn't know that yeah he went to saint x, he's hardly. 00:43:34.697 --> 00:43:35.659 Uh, he's hardly a hard scrabble. 00:43:36.139 --> 00:43:38.503 Yeah, but he's from there, Obviously. 00:43:38.503 --> 00:43:39.403 What's his name? 00:43:39.403 --> 00:43:42.653 Jd Vance. 00:43:42.653 --> 00:43:43.916 He's from Kentucky and Ohio. 00:43:43.916 --> 00:43:45.702 I mean, there's a bunch of people. 00:43:47.592 --> 00:43:49.436 Me, you, there we go, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:43:49.436 --> 00:43:51.460 Well, man this is awesome. 00:43:51.619 --> 00:43:59.184 I feel like I'm going to go this weekend like a champ, though I'm like one degree of separation from like the most powerful people on earth I know this is pretty awesome, isn't it? 00:43:59.204 --> 00:43:59.646 well, paul, how do you? 00:43:59.646 --> 00:44:08.039 What would you say to young people out here who are trying to start companies or uh, you know they're, they're trying to get into an industry and and and they're starting from scratch? 00:44:08.039 --> 00:44:17.054 What would you say to some folks startup people, side hustle people you know being, you know being in one of the most complicated industries ever? 00:44:17.054 --> 00:44:19.661 Would you tell them not to be intimidated? 00:44:19.661 --> 00:44:23.074 Would you tell them to fight through things Like what's the secret? 00:44:23.818 --> 00:44:24.079 Sure. 00:44:24.079 --> 00:44:31.623 So, since we've been on this political theme, I don't know if you know who Alistair Campbell is. 00:44:31.623 --> 00:44:35.246 Alistair Campbell was Tony Blair's media guru. 00:44:35.246 --> 00:44:46.641 Oh, now, I raise this only because he coined this great term which is called perseverance, and perseverance is the combination of perseverance and resilience. 00:44:46.641 --> 00:44:47.702 Oh, I like it. 00:44:47.702 --> 00:44:58.103 And it's a great term because it applies directly to your question as to be persistent and continue on and be resilient. 00:44:59.130 --> 00:45:04.322 Often I have a challenge coin on my desk over here. 00:45:04.322 --> 00:45:06.762 You probably can't see it. 00:45:06.762 --> 00:45:07.989 Oh yeah, there it is. 00:45:07.989 --> 00:45:11.860 It's a challenge coin from a British Army officer who was an SAS officer. 00:45:11.860 --> 00:45:17.882 Oh, and the motto of the SAS is who dares wins. 00:45:17.882 --> 00:45:24.556 So that's been one of the things that I've always thought about, and that's that's about this. 00:45:24.556 --> 00:45:28.494 I met this gentleman back in the political day, so that's about 30 years old. 00:45:28.494 --> 00:45:29.759 Wow. 00:45:29.759 --> 00:45:36.291 To answer your question is, first off, don't give up, as Wilson, as Winston Churchill used to say. 00:45:36.291 --> 00:45:58.088 You know, if you're going through hell, keep going and don't let someone else define what you think your sense of success is all about, because, at the end of the day, it's not what others think of your success, it's what you think of your success, and success may be just around the corner. 00:45:58.088 --> 00:46:00.014 I mean, life is full of ups and downs. 00:46:00.014 --> 00:46:09.503 I'm at an age now where I can say that you know being long of tooth, et cetera, but the reality is just continue on and, uh, don't give up. 00:46:10.150 --> 00:46:10.572 I love it. 00:46:10.572 --> 00:46:11.153 I love it. 00:46:11.153 --> 00:46:12.376 Paul, where can people find you? 00:46:12.376 --> 00:46:12.878 How do they? 00:46:12.878 --> 00:46:14.262 What's your website? 00:46:14.262 --> 00:46:17.378 Give us some links and this way is just just on linkedin. 00:46:17.557 --> 00:46:19.262 Yeah, um, you know my full. 00:46:19.262 --> 00:46:25.380 My linkedin name is paul r middle initial and then rupert, that's r-u-p-p-e-r-t. 00:46:25.380 --> 00:46:30.541 Uh, that's the easiest way to be able to access me, although I do have a website. 00:46:30.541 --> 00:46:32.550 But you know that's being refreshed. 00:46:32.550 --> 00:46:36.780 That's gpvltdcom, which is my company, global Point View. 00:46:36.780 --> 00:46:38.043 Love it, man. 00:46:38.349 --> 00:46:40.704 Paul thanks so much for spending time with us. 00:46:40.724 --> 00:46:43.215 a fellow Ohioan, it's been like a couple of beers in a bar. 00:46:43.215 --> 00:46:44.018 This has been great. 00:46:45.612 --> 00:46:47.010 Yeah, well, this guy will have beers with you. 00:46:47.010 --> 00:46:48.958 I don't drink at all because my family history. 00:46:48.958 --> 00:46:50.494 You don't want me drinking German-Irish. 00:46:50.494 --> 00:46:51.699 Like stay away from it, Okay. 00:46:58.829 --> 00:47:01.737 But my drug of choice is coffee and you can tell my drug of choice is whatever you got, his is bourbon. 00:47:01.757 --> 00:47:03.661 Don't let him lie, bourbon, he's in Kentucky. 00:47:03.661 --> 00:47:04.864 That works, yeah. 00:47:04.864 --> 00:47:09.442 So you come to Ohio or you come to Northern Kentucky or anywhere near Cincinnati, you let us know. 00:47:10.211 --> 00:47:15.858 I was there about a year and a half ago, so that was well. 00:47:15.858 --> 00:47:17.221 My uncle passed away. 00:47:17.221 --> 00:47:23.019 The gentleman that I mentioned lived in Cincinnati, and so where was I? 00:47:23.019 --> 00:47:23.501 I've forgotten. 00:47:23.501 --> 00:47:25.958 Some huge mall is at the hotel that I stayed at. 00:47:25.958 --> 00:47:28.739 I can't remember where exactly it was in town. 00:47:28.739 --> 00:47:31.978 Yeah, I can't recall yeah. 00:47:32.190 --> 00:47:34.793 Well, you come back here and we'll take you out. 00:47:34.793 --> 00:47:35.614 How about that? 00:47:36.255 --> 00:47:38.858 Okay, talk a little bit more, continue it, I can't turn that down. 00:47:38.858 --> 00:47:39.760 No, no, no, no. 00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:41.402 So, guys, more stories, that's right. 00:47:41.641 --> 00:47:42.103 That's right. 00:47:42.103 --> 00:47:43.344 Well, we're learning. 00:47:43.344 --> 00:47:46.550 We're learning a lot today, but Paul thanks for being on the show. 00:47:46.550 --> 00:47:47.331 We really appreciate it. 00:47:47.331 --> 00:47:56.438 Guys, check out Paul, rupert Paul and connect with Paul and, yeah, wealth of information. 00:47:57.659 --> 00:47:59.780 Thanks very much for the opportunity to talk to you today. 00:48:00.041 --> 00:48:05.105 Yeah thanks for coming on See ya, Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. 00:48:05.105 --> 00:48:06.925 Well, you've heard from our guests. 00:48:06.925 --> 00:48:08.507 Now let's hear from you. 00:48:08.507 --> 00:48:12.552 Join our community on Facebook, Side Hustle City. 00:48:12.552 --> 00:48:21.096 It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. 00:48:21.096 --> 00:48:24.469 We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. 00:48:24.469 --> 00:48:25.231 Thank you. 00:48:25.251 --> 00:48:45.463 Bye.