Edward Jones + RPAG, Great Gray & Private Equity | Retireholics

[0:00] JD: Today we are going to touch on a bunch of different topics. We're going to talk about Ed Jones. You're not supposed to call them that, but I don't care. Ed Jones collaboration with the retirement plan advisory group. And a boon. We'll talk about collective investment trust versus mutual funds. A little update on that competition if you will. Sherry Fitz at the helm of the EERI Collective. We'll touch on a few things there. A new daily artificial intelligence reporter brought to you by the very handsome people at Waves Zucks and his new meta muse. A AI a drink solution. [0:44] Justin: Oh, I don't have my buttons ready. [0:47] JD: And a new. Oh, that is a horrible old fashioned I made myself. And a new video release from Chad and his American Retirement association consortium. Matchmaking third party administrators and advisors. We'll get a little update from Chad and this little video that's come out. But before we do, why is everything little? [1:09] Chad: Why can't be like an awesomely big release? Amazing that everybody's tuning into video. [1:14] JD: True. That's a very shame on the pessimist in me. My bad. Yeah, the big video that came out from nerdy Chad and his little co workers. [1:24] Justin: That's pretty, that's pretty selfish of you to point that out specifically Chad just because you're involved in it. [1:29] JD: Right? But we will be doing chapter champion in the old school way today. Last show's winner, Neil has been shipped a rogue guy on a scooter hoodie. And guess what? You'll win tonight if you're the chat bar champion. And it's going to be in the classic sense to all you old chat bars. You know, it's, it's good old fashioned rules. You, you go for it. We vote for some finalists. Roby gives you a sentence to finish. We vote for the winner based on who crushes that. And if you win tonight, you will get a nerdy chad desk organizer. It holds up to six pens and pencils. Six in this nice little wood box you put on your. On your desk. And with nerdy Chad. So what was I gonna say? Oh, this will take any 401k pro's desk to the next level. And imagine how much you'd crush it with a nerdy chad pencil holder on your desk. [2:30] Justin: Do we get to see an image [2:31] JD: of that or any taking ass and taking names? No. [2:35] Justin: Are you just sending them one from like the dollar store? [2:37] JD: Maybe next week. [2:38] Chad: It's with like a sticker. [2:39] Mark: Is it just gonna have a dirty chad on it? You're gonna have like a logo? [2:43] JD: It is no it's got nerdy chat on it. [2:45] Justin: It's a cup. It's a. It's a. [2:49] Mark: No, no. [2:49] JD: It's got nerd speedy cup with his glasses. [2:52] Justin: That counts. That counts. Justin. I still haven't loaded the button. Sorry. [2:59] JD: So, welcome. This is the way the retire holics was intended to be. This is how it always was in the beginning. The four of us, no stupid guests in here getting in our way. You want to hear about 4k stuff from the Well4SOR. [3:15] Justin: Sorry to all our guests that we don't share the same sentiment. [3:18] JD: Fair enough. Brandon, play that beautiful headlines intro and let's get to it. Is there music? [3:28] Chad: No, no, there's. There's definitely no music at the moment. I don't think I ever noticed that your eye was black there, J.D. you got knocked in the face in the video. [3:37] JD: Yeah, I. I know. Okay, I think that's it. Here we go. Get right into the. What I think is the big one. Edward Jones collabing with a boon retirement plan advisory group. I think in my opinion, there's three big things here. We can kind of add some if you all have some different opinions or the chat bar kind of sends us in a certain direction. But one, I'd like to talk about this artificial intelligence powered tech and how Ed Jones is supporting advisors with this two retirement plan advisory group being used by a firm like Edward Jones kind of caught me off guard. I'd like to discuss. And three, can we once again ask and discuss who the fuck is a boon and what the fuck is going on there? So let's kick it off. Chad, when you saw this article, Edward Jones partnering with these two and this artificial intelligence powered plan management system, I believe they called it, they described it as. You're going to help these advisors, Edward Jones Advisors in the prospecting, marketing, the closing, the onboarding, and then the ongoing service. I mean, you know me, I'm a pessimist, but this sounds like a good thing, no? [5:00] Chad: Absolutely. And these tools, at least on surface, what they've described, already exist, right? Some of them exist disconnected. Some of them exist via a record keeping platform, which is essentially where these are built, except on a TPA chassis, Right? This is built by a boon. [5:20] Mark: Thanks, Mark. [5:21] JD: Well, it was on portions of it are built by a boon, but I'd imagine portions of it are retirement plan advisory groups. [5:28] Chad: I think the investment technology and the data behind some of the analytics is our retirement plan advisory group. Check swing. But the. The platform, JD is all a boom. [5:41] Justin: Can't call your own Check swings, dude. [5:43] Chad: Mark. So yes, when you, when you remember John Hancock, Coach's Corner and Trans had their own thing and Empower had their own thing. Like all of them had a collaboration of tools that advisors could use to prosp, find, prospect, win and retain business, analyze the investments like all the things that are being described here now. It wasn't captive to a broker dealer like this apparently is at launch and it didn't have the outside support of something like the retirement plan advisory Group. [6:15] JD: So can I ask. Proprietary on a negative side and silent Jade, chime in here if you want. Don't wait. If you're an Edward Jones advisor, you're. Even though Edward Jones was an investor in a boon, I mean you're not going to do all your stuff with a boon, are you? And so what happens if you don't have stuff with them that it's not going to go through this, this plan management system you're talking about. [6:42] Chad: Jeff, Justin, you started. Go ahead. I won't, I won't jump on your toes. [6:46] Mark: I mean I think it's going to vary by the, the advisor and what their needs are. [6:50] Chad: Right. [6:50] Mark: I, I think the more green advice, actually, I don't know if that's true. I was going to say I think the more green advisors are going to maybe leverage it because it's being pitched to them as new and easy and stuff like that. But I'm sure it probably doesn't have all the bells and whistles that it needs to have versus someone whose experience is going to want, you know, a lot more. I would say white glove treatment that we have heard that doesn't come with the aboon side of things. So they'll probably still be encouraged, you know, or want to go out to [7:15] Chad: working with us and, and let me piggyback all selling. No, can we, can we, can we [7:23] Justin: just really quick, can we just really quick just. I'm going to preface this what I think real fast because we have an audience of people listening that probably read the same press release that we did. And unless JD or Chad, you guys have actually gotten physical information about this, we're speculating. Can we just state that for the record? [7:43] Chad: Well, nothing that we've said so far is speculation. That was in, that was in the press release. [7:48] Justin: Right, right. We're just explaining what we believe to be what this is, what it will [7:54] Mark: do in the tech yet or anything like that. Is that what you're trying to get to? [7:57] Justin: Well, yeah, I got a call from an Edward Jones advisor today who said what do you know, and I was like, what do you mean what do I know? And he said, well, I saw on your show tonight you're gonna be talking about all this stuff. I just heard about it yesterday. So even the Edward Jones advisors are like, we don't even really know what this is yet. [8:13] JD: Well, instead of picking holes in it, can I just say from a positive standpoint, I'm not sure financial advisors historically have very organized. [8:31] Justin: Chad, jump in, buddy. San Antonio, baby. [8:38] Chad: No, they're talking over you, jd. You're not cutting out that bad. They're talking over you while you're trying to okay you. [8:46] JD: When you're a third party administrator, you have to have an organized workflow, right? Because there are lots of things that you have to do legally through the course of a plan year. If you're a financial advisor, I haven't seen a lot of that structure in a good way. And so I think if Edward Jones is taking a step towards building that out in a very organized way so all their advisors, whether they're newbies or average guys, can get it from A to Z and do a good job. But then I just want to say for the record, without like Mark said, not knowing all the details, I still think that's a great thing. Like that's absolutely. [9:19] Chad: I selfishly, I will say, and my fear with some conflict of interest, which I felt this existed when they launched with a boon, but then Edward Jones immediately came back and said, oh no, no, no, we don't have anything to do with a boon. They're just another TPA option, damn it. And I'm like, what do you mean? You gave them access to all of your advisors. You gave them access to Drip, communicate to all of them like you partially own Uboon to Neil's point in the chat bar. So selfishly I look at this and say this is another way of aboon capturing the Edward Jones community in a way that will push the third party administrator away. Now on their website now you can see it very little, but in the press release it says this is not. We're going to allow other third party administrators in. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you are. Because you know that many Edward Jones folks are still working with us around and the technology is supposed to be somewhat independent, but if you can imagine here for one second, I'm putting together a pricing comparison when no third party administrator is involved there and, and not listing a boon every single fucking time, then you're crazy. Because that's what they're going to do. This is A floodgate for a boon to get and grow, which means Edward Jones makes money. Because Edward Jones is the primary stakeholder. [10:45] Justin: Well, they would like to see a little return on their investment and this is a way to do that. Obviously. I again, I think there's such a push from Edward Jones right now with how they're structuring and tearing their workplace retirement teams and leaders and doing all that. I think this is just to give all their advisors a way to begin looking at this as something they could build as part of their book of business. Because many of them don't know where to start. They don't know how to prospect. Maybe they don't have time to do it. This gives them less of an excuse for that. Exactly. Like, hey, we've built this for you and it does and checks all those boxes. So I think it's a good thing. And even the advisor I talked to today was like, hey, I haven't done a lot of 401ks. If this is something I can leverage, I'm going to do that, but I'm not going to take out the third party administrator that I'm partnering with. So I hope there's a way for me to go in and uncheck that a boon box and use it. Now. He brought up a good point too, of saying, I hope this makes the onboarding process easier because that's something that's been a little clunky in his mind. So they could probably really leverage this and use this if it's a universal kind of, hey, we're working together as a community to do this. But to Chad's point, if this is a way just to start tossing business a certain direction again, I think it's going to be looked at a little differently. [12:04] JD: Well, it's Chad's point. They did say in the press release that this was third party administrator friendly. So I think we'll just have to keep our finger on that and see how that plays out. Because that could be a bad move for them as well. By the way, like, Edward Jones has spent a lot of time trying to cultivate those relationships with third party administrators, I believe. And by the way, we're more than just compliance work. We are sales partners, prospecting partners. [12:35] Justin: Oh, this is segue. [12:38] Mark: No, I mean, who's going to teach them how to do that? [12:41] JD: Right? [12:41] Mark: Yes, they have access to those tools, but who's going to teach them what to look for? Like, does a boon have people like Boots on the ground doing that for the. [12:48] Chad: It sure said that Edward Jones is Justin, Edward Jones owns this too. Like right. [12:55] Mark: Ownership in it. [12:56] JD: But any, any quick thoughts on our Retirement Plan Advisory Group's role in this? I've always seen them as kind of working with their own captured advisors. Shame on me because they work with multiple broker dealers. Edward Jones is really just a version of a broker dealer. But this is a big win for them to have their methodology be used by Edward Jones now. [13:22] Chad: Well, and what do they want? They have their own asset sleeves that they want in these investments. And now you've got 40,000 captive financial advisors you're going to get access to. Which was another thing that really made me laugh right when A Boon launched their website and they said trusted by 40,000 financial advisors. Are you trusted by 40,000 financial advisors because Edward Jones approved you? Because then I'm trusted by like 90 advisors. [13:47] JD: I think more than that. Yeah. [13:50] Chad: But no, so, so I think rpag, damn. Being involved in this is a. Both a smart thing for them and for Edward Jones. I think this gives Edward Jones a little clout into this space they may not have had in the past to try to get upper market. Because if you look at most Jones advisors, they're in that micro small space and they're targeting households and not necessarily plans or assets. And this might give them a little toe, a little step in that direction from RPG's perspective. JD we know we saw this. Damn, it's two. We saw this years and years and years ago. Asset management is where they want to be. Do they have tools? Do they have modeling portfolio? Yes. But they want asset management. Got a huge sleeve. [14:37] JD: Let's also be clear to some of the comments in the chat bar. What we knew to be Retirement Plan Advisory Group is very different today than it was. This is owned by Great Gray and Rob. And so I would say if this looks like a deal that you haven't seen done historically, you might stop and say, oh well then hats off to Great Gray for kind of taking things in a new direction with Retirement Plan Advisory Group. And so I think that's actually kind of impressive. That return plan is under new management and new leadership now and they've inked this deal. So I've given them a little bit of not shit. I've been claiming them to be a little dark and shady because they're getting their tentacles in so many spaces. Here is another example of that. But Great Gray is a force to be reckoned with for sure. For sure. Let's, let's. Oh, we didn't really talk about who the A Boon is So just real quickly, some dude from HR payroll, some kind of like tech entrepreneur started it. Do I have one? And, and then a woman who's got experience in our industry for quite some [15:49] Chad: time, knows it very well. [15:51] JD: But kind of my question of like, where did this fucking come from and why? And why is it such a big deal all of a sudden? And is it like because this literally came out of nowhere. Like I feel like, [16:07] Chad: I feel like I can answer that in the quickest possible fashion. It became a big deal because for some reason Edward Jones decided to put money into this and force it upon 40,000 advisors. If they tried to launch this like a regular third party administrator shop. Without that buy into Edward Jones, we wouldn't even know who the name of Boone is. They still like, I think they're still under 40 employees at this stage, right. They got 17 million in funding when they launched like their, their whole notoriety, the whole access even. The only reason they exist at this point is all the Edward Jones relationship. 100, you know, it trusts me. [16:51] Justin: That's a strong statement. [16:52] Chad: I feel very confident. [16:54] JD: We've talked about this many times on the show, but what frustrates me about a boon a little bit is it's great marketing. If you go to their website, you can read it all, but they push that whole like five minute install thing again. And I'm like, if, if you're trying to be a good third party administrator, why you, then you're a dummy. If you're trying to push a five minute install like I, I don't even understand that concept. So anyways, I, I'm a bit pessimistic about their whole thing and what they're doing, but I'll move on and we'll keep our picture on it for the future. [17:29] Chad: If you put your, your foil hat on like you used to back in the day. Jd, I would absolutely love to know how that relationship came about. I almost feel like Jones decided to launch a boon themselves with a little bit of arms distance and they went out and got. [17:49] JD: Well, I do know I, I should dig deeper. Maybe some of the chat bar has. I do know that like 17 and a half million dollar was like their second round funding for a moon. We all know that Madison, that Madison Dearborn is, is the, the money behind Great Gray and some of that. So I wonder if all those things cross up somewhere. I haven't, I haven't done that. I haven't put on the tinfoil hat and started connecting all those long strings yet on my garage wall. But I'll try to in the future. Yeah, enough. Enough of a boon in these people. Sherry Fitz texted me saying, at the Aory Steeri Collective. I chuckle when I say that. Names so mysterious and fun and I feel they should be wearing hooded robes. Sherry Fitz is now the executive director. I believe the title is great. Sherry's awesome. Sherry smart. Sherry's got a great marketing brain. Sherry's a friend of me personally, of the show. Like, I think that's phenomenal. I'm still confused on what the. The Asteri Collective is and, and all these other ones. There's like three other ones, right? Chad or two other ones that, that are getting all these third party administrators together. We've had the conversation before, but yeah, left out. [19:24] Justin: I feel kind of left out sometimes. [19:26] Mark: I. [19:26] JD: Do you guys want to join one? [19:28] Justin: I feel like everybody is conspiring. Well, they know because now it's becoming too, like. I don't know, it's like not mysterious enough anymore. But it's mysterious enough to where I think, do they not like us? Do they? Do they. Are they. Are they stonewalling us? [19:45] JD: I don't understand. [19:46] Chad: J.D. and I sat with what was a STERI prior to a steri. We even signed an NDA with them to get some information. [19:54] JD: And they've wooed us. They've wooed us and learned. [19:56] Justin: Yeah. [19:57] Chad: And it was super interesting. And I love the concept of these groups collaborating together and learning from one another and creating some economies of scale in an industry that tends to be fairly small and segregated. I think, I think it's great. It didn't fit for us. [20:14] Mark: But I bring to the group, like, you know, obviously they don't get price, specialized pricing or anything through record keepers or anything. I mean, is there technology they're building out? What makes, by the way, they do. [20:25] JD: They do try to get part of it. They do try to get specialized prices, I believe. I think with record keepers, it can be minimal. To Chad's point. They can collaborate together, I'd imagine if there's tech they all wanted to use, but they still do act very much siloed in terms of their way that they're doing things. I think maybe Justin. I want to know from Justin if, if you think it would be cool or advantageous if you could say that you were part of theory group as you sold this Sorry. Siri Collective. Way more cooler. But before I ask you, answer that. I think the reason why I haven't joined it is we're just way smarter than all the other TPAs anyway. So why Would we want to learn from them? I don't need their help. That's like Tom Brady asking a high school quarterback for advice. Like, why would I go to those [21:22] Mark: question, will it help me sell more plant? I don't. I would. I would venture to guess not a lot of people are going to understand what that means. Right. [21:30] Chad: And I don't think they lead with it, Josh. I don't. [21:33] Mark: Yeah. [21:34] Chad: But it does allow them to hear things that other competitors are doing and say, oh, man, I love that. Let me embrace it and put it in our firm. And now maybe they're. Maybe their consultants are out there talking about something new that they otherwise didn't. The one big thing, Justin, when J.D. and I sat with them, that was exciting to us, is. And this was long ago, this is when Bob Carroll first kind of launched this relationship outside of Matt, was access to higher levels of broker dealers. [22:06] Justin: Yeah, right. [22:06] Chad: Than we currently get. Like, who do you think sitting. Who do you think called Edward Jones this past week? Probably when all of this news started to come out with a new launch, a deeper launch. [22:17] JD: There's some path in that. [22:19] Justin: Can I ask a question, though? To be part of this collective? First off, do you just get selected and they kidnap you in a van, then you just show up and you're part of it, or do you like, pay, or do you like, pay an entry fee? [22:31] Chad: It's a hazing, dude. It's a total hazing. [22:35] Justin: If you imagine, do they. Do they beat you up? I mean, this sounds like a gang to me. [22:40] Chad: So just get out. By selling to private equity. [22:42] Mark: See the movie Skulls, Mark. [22:44] Justin: I've seen a lot of movies, Justin. Not that one. [22:47] Mark: No, you haven't. What about. I. I don't even think we could be in it if we wanted. I would imagine kind of like Serato Group. There's a geographical, you know, requirement that you got to be so far away from the other third party administrators. And we got Tommy down, down in San Diego. That's a part of this. [23:00] JD: I don't know. That's a great question. [23:02] Justin: I was. I know my, my next question was going to be, yeah, what point does a collective become potential drama if one third party administrator wins a plan from another or they move just. It also. I. I don't know if I get it. I don't know if I don't know. [23:21] Chad: I do and then I do. [23:23] JD: And then. Justin, the problem is we're. We're selling plans in all 50 states. So it's like, I don't even understand the regional Thing at a certain point, you know, as a lot of these TPAs are not just selling in some neighborhood, you know, they're going out and selling. [23:39] Chad: Part of my worry there is a [23:41] Justin: bit of like jealousy in some regard. I see all that stuff. I'm like, oh cool, they're all getting together, hanging out and. [23:48] Chad: Yeah. And, and learning and growing. One of the things that, that worries me a bit. And jd, you and I talked about this when we saw these collectives starting to form was there are a couple in there that are serious aggregators. In fact, you and I probably got an email from one today. I know I got an email from one today that talked about another third party administrator they acquired and how well that merger into their business is going and how they're continuing to get to run their own business still. Well, I think that some of those collectives have a few of those third party administrators that are there specifically to try to capture eat up and purchase [24:27] JD: other third party administrators. I was actually going to go there. When we talked about this last time, it was several months ago, I thought maybe one of the concepts here was if we could bundle together say 10, 12, 15 third party administrators, then we could be more attractive to be purchased at a higher multiple. Which is facts like if the bigger you get, you could raise a multiple and therefore everyone who's part of that group could see a bigger upside in terms of selling their company at some point. But then I was told, no, no, [25:04] Justin: no, no gets sold. Do you just get sold as part of it? [25:08] JD: If you agree. I mean. [25:09] Justin: Well, no, you could. [25:10] JD: I don't, I don't think that's a [25:12] Mark: couple extra toilets and a few Lambos. [25:14] Justin: I don't. [25:15] JD: First of all, hang on, Chad, I don't think that's their strategy. But the. Mark, the question you just asked is exactly what happened with the advisors of One Digital. You know, some of them would sell, some of them wouldn't. In that sense. So. So yeah, that it could work that way. I don't think that's how the Asteri collective is working. And I think I was told, Chad, that I was wrong in that sense because someone got kicked out of the original Serato group because they were trying to just. We'll move on. [25:45] Chad: But as soon as. Yeah, as soon as you get acquired, they're independent. Well, I guess the theory is not because. And Mark, you rang me up for this and I don't think it's. [25:54] JD: Just say the words. Just say the words. [25:56] Chad: MAP is not an abbreviation. But they, I believe they're they're owned by private equity now, I think. [26:03] Justin: Right. [26:04] JD: So. [26:04] Chad: But I know Serato Group does not allow anybody that's not privately owned. [26:08] JD: Remember, we could always just start our own. So just. [26:12] Justin: Justin. [26:12] Mark: Did you guys see Webby's comment? It needs to be the Robi Collective. [26:17] JD: If any other third party administrators want to. Want to join the Robey Collective, we will send in your submission and you can be under our brand, our umbrella. We'll even mention you from time to time on Retireholics. And we just want like 40% of your revenue. [26:36] Justin: But when you. But when you send it in, I need to know the Social Security numbers of all of your kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, anybody you're associated with and their. Their address. Thank you. [26:49] JD: Okay, that's. That should work. Okay, so let us know if you're interested in that. Let's spin the wheel of ice. And please don't land on me because I have a 24 ounce can. [27:00] Chad: Oh, geez. Land on J.D. this is gonna turn bad quickly. [27:05] Justin: Shotgun that. [27:07] JD: Yeah, that's. [27:08] Chad: Yeah. [27:09] Mark: Did you see my comment? [27:11] Chad: I don't believe you, though. [27:12] Mark: I'm on your website. [27:17] Chad: Love, Brandon. [27:18] JD: Thanks, Brandon. [27:19] Mark: Should we all drink with J.D. [27:21] Chad: i'm drinking the shots I have to take for. [27:24] JD: I need you guys. I need you guys to tackle the next subject while I tackle this 24 ounces of diet. [27:31] Justin: Just make it about these topics so he can talk about. [27:33] JD: Okay, let's do that. [27:34] Justin: Well, good call. [27:35] JD: We'll pivot. Chad will pivot to Brandon. [27:40] Justin: Brandon, no pivot, no nothing. Wow. [27:49] JD: Let me. Let me set up the damn segment. [27:53] Mark: We used to disrupt you all the time. We're back to our original ways. [27:57] JD: Chad has been working closely with Nevin Adams, Shannon Edwards, Mary Patch, some. Some other people in the American Retirement association on this whole think tank of bringing advisors and TPAs together. And Chad, I mostly want you to focus on this new video that came out and. And where it's hosted right now. And because that's new news to me too. Go ahead. [28:26] Chad: Well, that was it. That was my whole intro. [28:28] JD: Yeah. I mean, what were you guys talking about? Why. How's it going? [28:31] Chad: The background behind all of this is. And I'm going to say years ago, because that's where it started. Years ago, there was this ongoing conversation of your. Your. It's going to be hard not to use acronyms for this. Your bundled provider is a compliance administrator, too. And there was this common disconnect when we would talk with advisors that when it was bundled, they just thought everything was Done. And when it was unbundled, they thought everything was parsed. [28:58] Justin: We should write a children's book that's with that title. [29:01] Chad: Yeah, it's a good one. [29:02] Justin: Your bundled provider is a compliance administrator. [29:05] Chad: Then we started asking them to get a little bit deeper, like, hey, you're having a conversation with Empower. Ask them if they're doing this, if they're running this test, if they can do this type of cross testing. And we quickly found out the answers were no, no and no. And then we were having this conversation with Mary Patch, who's a financial advisor, and she was coming at us as a third party administrator community saying, hey, you guys are supposed to be doing eligibility determinations. And we're sitting back going, well, no, we validate eligibility at the end of the year. We don't do the per pay period determinations. Like that's typically payroll and record keeper. And so, [29:48] JD: oh my God, that was fucking gnarly. [29:52] Chad: What we quickly realized is that there is a massive disconnect between what's actually being done and what the advisor community thinks is being done. And so this launched originally with a American Retirement association podcast that we did that. Their way of doing this is, you know, you purchase the link and you get a listen to us talk about it. And then we got done with it and we went, shit, this is awesome. More people need to hear this, not just behind the wall of the American Retirement Association. So let's start. [30:27] Justin: That's how retireholics was born. How shocking is that? [30:31] Chad: And so we started recording what was a 50 minute session. We did three separate videos of your, you know, your bundled providers, a compliance administrator to. The videos build on one another. Like, what are the five terrible assumptions that advisors make about third party administrators? In reverse, what are the, the negative assumptions that third party administrators make about advisors? How can they partner better together? [30:56] JD: You think you guys pulled it off pretty good. [30:58] Chad: I do, I do. I think we pulled it off fairly well. And the back end of it is something that the American Retirement association and us created, which is this, this checklist essentially that an advisor could take to two different bundled providers or a bundled provider and a third party administrator and say, like, do you fucking do these things? Like, how long have you been in the space? How many people do you have servicing how many plans you have? Do you actually do these tasks? Will you help with loans and distributions or do you push it off? And so it helps an advisor quantify the difference between compliance administrators. [31:34] JD: Nothing as sexy as a checklist like that. That's good. [31:37] Chad: Dude, we, we looked at so many different ways of. And you're right, that. That. That ended up being apparently the best way we could come up with. So here's what you mentioned on the back end, though, Jay, is where's it hosted? I went to Brandon and I'm like, help me. Help me make these videos better. At least, like, publish them, not knowing how we were going to release them. And Brandon came back and said, dude, I just got a URL called 401k nerd. And I want it to be universal. I want anybody who wants to share content, whether that's you all with these videos, whether it's blog posts, someone's writing, we can just shove everything there and make it a 401k landing page that people can get value from. And so this is kind of the initial launch of. [32:19] JD: I think you should sell pen and pencil holders on there with your logo with your face on it at Nerd. [32:27] Chad: Let's do it. [32:28] Justin: At least try. At least get some advertising on there or something. [32:32] JD: Okay. [32:33] Chad: It's not in 48 freaking hours, Mark. [32:36] JD: And by the way, Nevin Singh, people are asking. [32:38] Justin: It sounds like a you problem. [32:41] JD: The checklist is available at where? American Retirement Association. [32:46] Chad: If you go to 401k nerd.com and you go to our video section under the resources there, it's. It's linked right there, so you can. You can get it right there. It's pretty cool the way Brandon set that up, too. Each video has breakdowns of chapters, so you can skip the certain questions that you might want to see us answer. I. I love what he's put together there, and I like what we've done from a content standpoint. [33:10] JD: Okay, well, to Chad's point, if anyone else out there wants to write a piece, have an audio podcast or whatever, we can put it up at 401k nerd.com what's. [33:23] Justin: What's. What's Shannon S word saying there? So you guys are starting a separate podcast, the four of you? [33:29] Chad: Oh, Shannon, I haven't broke the news to these guys yet. [33:34] Justin: Yeah, look at that. [33:35] Chad: We have. We. We have so much fun collaborating. Hey, JD Was part of this two years ago, and then he kind of slid out the back door in an Irish exit pretty easily. But we have great conversations, bantering, and so we decided we're just gonna start recording them. [33:50] JD: Chad hasn't read the small print on his retireholics contract. That's like him going to live. [33:57] Mark: Dude, [34:00] JD: we're not talking about Liv. [34:02] Chad: What? [34:02] JD: Talk about Phil. [34:04] Chad: Oh, well, checking into rehab. [34:08] JD: Those people put out a press release that he has completed his rehab. So everyone, you can, you can accept Nicholson back into your warm embrace. He's fine now. I'm kidding. I'm being facetious and I was a fan. Okay, we digress. Let's talk about collective investment trusts and mutual funds. What do we know about these two things? We've reported on this show for quite some time that collective investment trusts are winning the market share game against mutual funds. Okay, so specifically in the target date fund battle, collective investment trusts are north of, I think 55%, 56% and gaining. So they're clearly becoming the choice. [34:54] Chad: But let's be honest, it's because they started upper market and are coming down. So they've got asset, they've got a lot of assets, not a lot of plans. [35:02] JD: Assets, yes, as do all things in our industry, I would say. They start up market and they come down market. And I think the mid market and the small market, Chad, will make these same choices. Because I'm going to oversimplify here, but if you have a Vanguard target date mutual fund, your plan and your advisor comes to you and says, hey, we can put you in the collective investment trust equivalent for a lower price. You're probably going to make that choice given the right kind of due diligence and what have you. So let me get back to what we know. We know that they're gaining big market share as Chad points. That's assets, not necessarily plans. And I was speaking specifically to target day funds. We know that they have lower costs, the collective investment trusts, because they have less oversight in regulatory requirements. Okay, now what I want to ask you is, in our world, and I think this is true, I just kind of touched on it, aren't these collective investment trusts just clones of the very mutual funds that we were using? Example, Vanguard, Fidelity, T Row, BlackRock, they all had these mutual fund target dates. And now they've turned their focus really to the collective investment trust, which. So when you ask yourself if you need to do which. This article talked a lot about this kind of like due diligence and the responsibility of the plan sponsor. Isn't it just the same fucking thing in a different wrapper? [36:41] Chad: And it's cheaper, I would say for the most part. Yeah. I look at it as being a vehicle, like a car, right? These are two different types of cars. And they're going to get me from place A to place B. And they're both nice cars if they're the exact same car. Perhaps. Perhaps one's running on electricity and one's running on gas, one's a little cheaper because. Great analogy, but it is just a shell that's carrying the underlying investments and how they have to report. And yeah, the, the collective investment trust tend to be less expensive in nature. Different type of reporting from them, but all in all the same vehicle. [37:20] JD: And these days, here we go again, dipping back into a tentacle of great gray. I think the reporting's pretty similar now. Like they've got their I'll drink, they've got their Q sips. And so when you're area frat Voya or any empower, any real record keeper, you're going to read these things and get the data, the one year, the three month, the year to date, the five year, the same way you would get it for a mutual fund. They're really back in the old days there was a difference. [37:50] Chad: So when I say reporting, I'm talking about reporting to the securities and Exchange Commission versus hence lower costs because they don't have to pay, they don't have the same as an Act 40 fund has. And also when you look at their history, right, they don't have many of them don't have long tenure. So you're not going back and looking at a 10 year, 15, 20 year track record. So that's a little different for participants. [38:17] JD: So I sat on a committee with an advisor and a client that moved the American Century target dates from the mutual fund of the collective investment trust. And at the time they were new, so they didn't have this track record that you're talking about. But I believe everyone just kind of looked at the track record of the [38:39] Chad: American, the underlying mutual fund. Yeah, right, right. [38:43] JD: So, so that's not a point. I don't feel like we saw that too. [38:47] Chad: Remember when, when managed accounts really start to push or, or not target date funds, but risk tolerance funds and they would look at the underlying core menu fund that investments that they were using and they would say like this is what it would have done over the prior five years, 10 years, 15 years. [39:04] JD: So we're the question for the, the question for the group and for the chat bar is are we inevitably heading down a path where all investments in foreign cap plans will be collective investment trusts? And why not? Why is that even a bad thing? [39:21] Chad: I, I think so, J.D. unless something else changes here in the future and, and those changes need to come from the recordkeeping chassis because those are the ones that are the majority of the money. [39:33] JD: Certainly those investment managers, those what I used to call Mutual fund firms, but that's an inappropriate label. Now want this. This is what they've been working towards. So we didn't go down that conspiracy rabbit hole as I actually think it's advantageous for them. And when no one's really peeled back those layers enough yet to realize that maybe their profit margin is, you know, maybe slim, I'm sure, but is a little better underneath these collective investment than it was under these regulatory heavy mutual funds. And so clearly you got a lower expense ratio. Even though we can't call it an expense ratio. It's something different. But. But it is still a lower expense for that investment. Maybe they're making a little more too. [40:17] Chad: So, yeah, I don't know the answer to that one. It's hard with as thin as those, [40:22] JD: those when you're doing billions. Thin works, you know, like it still works. [40:28] Chad: I'm looking, I'm looking at, at Neil and Nevin in the chat. Talk about the fact that there's very. I don't know if you said minimal transparency. You said less transparency. And then what we're doing is we're saying that there's no. And we're acknowledging what mutual funds need to do in terms of disclosures because it's different. It's different. It doesn't have to be the same things. We've already done. We have different types of disclosures now with different names and different sections. [40:54] JD: Okay, when Nevin says less transparent and then uses his journalistic expertise to put opaque 5, 5 exclamation points on the end of it, is he talking about the fact that. What I just talked about is that, oh, maybe there's, there's like revenue, fees, whatever underneath there. Because I, I would argue with Nevin right now and say less transparent, like it's cheaper and it's brought to you by the same names that you trust. Voya, T Row, Fidelity, Vanguard. So what are you worried about with transparency? It's not as though they're. We're not talking about private equity investments here or private credit. [41:35] Chad: We're talking about, basically the underlying holdings are the same. [41:38] JD: It's a fucking clone of a mutual fund being run with less overhead. That's all that's happening. [41:43] Chad: So why I feel like the example here in this, and forgive me if I'm wrong, because I'm not, I'm not going to say I'm an expert in this space, but if I want to go buy something right now, most of the time I'm going to roll to Amazon and I want to go, I Want to go buy a pair of Nike cleats? I'm going to get the same set of Nike cleats on Amazon and I'm likely going to get a little bit cheaper than if I went to the local sports sporting goods store. But it's still the same Nike set of cleats that I'm purchasing there. I'm just getting it a little bit cheaper by my. [42:18] JD: I was going to give you shit for your analogy, but it's actually kind of on point. One of the reasons why the mutual fund is more expensive is because a mutual fund can be sold to retail investors. [42:29] Chad: Right? [42:30] JD: Just like your retail store example. So, so you need to pay for advertisement, you know how to service those retail stores, etc. All that goes away with the collective investment trust. Although I would argue that the voyage, the T rose, the vanguard still have to pay that for their own brand. [42:48] Chad: And my point in that analogy was specifically to acknowledge that it's the same underlying pair of cleats I'm trying to get right. Like I'm getting a Nike here and I'm getting a Nike cleat there. And that's what I feel like. These collective investment trusts are essentially bringing the same underlying investments in a different wrapper. [43:06] JD: And do you know that once again, and this was not planned, this is the 24 ounces of Smirnoff Ice talking once again. The tentacles of Great Gray are all over this subject. This is becoming a theme, bro. Let's. Let's play a game. And it's my favorite game. What's that called? Roby? [43:31] Chad: No, Every game have no idea. [43:35] JD: Oh, Fin talk again. [43:37] Justin: JD this isn't a game. [43:39] JD: Not true. [43:40] Justin: True. I mean, call it a segment, a release from the. [43:45] JD: No, actually we're going to talk about business. [43:47] Justin: Well, we don't have audio, so this is going to be a problem, right? [43:50] JD: Yeah. [43:50] Chad: Hopefully Brandon's got audio now. Good point. Yeah. [43:53] JD: Brandon, be careful. We've been struggling with the audio. So if you're new to this, if you're new to this segment, we're going to play a reel a tick tock and. And then we're going to discuss it. So Brandon, play one. [44:10] Justin: Hey, Mike, I was just calling to touch tips with you and see if we could get this thing across the finish line this week. So go ahead and give me a call back when you get the chance. [44:20] Chad: They docking touch tips. [44:24] JD: He's talking about a new business term like instead of touch base. Let's try it. Let's try getting into touch tips. Let's make it. [44:33] Chad: No, no, no. Under no circumstances is that okay. [44:38] Mark: We're all thinking the same thing. We got the same visual going right now. [44:41] Chad: It's just, it's not it. [44:42] Justin: I think, I think he's on to something because let's be honest, like, touching base needs a, needs an upgrade. We need to, we need to remodel that saying a little bit. [44:51] Mark: But yeah, but let's, let's, let's shop work there or workshop that. [44:55] Justin: Shop work. It would be. Yeah. Okay. We'll definitely take it to the wood shop and work it. [44:59] JD: Yeah, but, but tell me it wouldn't be fun to like, you know, kind of slip that in there and see how it works. Just calling you tips on this. [45:12] Chad: Okay. [45:14] JD: By the way, this guy on Tick Tock, maybe I'll bring him back for some others. He does actual like cold calling and there's this whole generation of memes out on our Tick Tock guys out there that are doing like real cold calling work and they just film themselves and they say the most ridiculous. And this guy does some pretty funny ones. But. Okay, next one. Brandon X. [45:50] Mark: I'm just visualizing. [45:51] Justin: Chad remains undefeated. Undefeated. [45:56] JD: Who's the biggest stand up desk guy here tonight? [45:59] Justin: Chad. Chad, is I. [46:03] JD: Is that how you feel when you send your emails? [46:05] Chad: I honestly don't send emails standing. I only take meetings standing up. I don't work. [46:12] Justin: Sure, Chad. Every day, all day. Yes. [46:17] JD: Are you a fan of stand up desks in general, Chad? Tell us more about them. [46:22] Chad: Let's touch the last few years and JD and I actually talked about this with my chair. I've been having back issues and fear feet issues and, and when I stand up, I don't. So I'm trying to break up the day a little bit rather than sitting in the seat all day long. [46:39] JD: Hopefully no other of my employees are listening. But when Chad calls me and is like, hey man, I really want, I want to get that chair. But I haven't bothered you about it and I don't. It's expensive. So I, I'm like, I will say this for everyone listening in. I used to think that way early on in my career, like you could go down to Target and buy a chair for 75 bucks or you can go to these luxury office brands. [47:04] Mark: What is that brand that you bought years ago? [47:07] JD: Oh man, there's some great brand. Herman Miller's one. [47:10] Mark: That's it? Yeah. [47:11] JD: There's another. And, and there are chairs that are two grand, 1500, whatever. It's kind of worth it, man. Like you're sitting in that fucker all day long. Steel case is a great one. Yeah, that's the one we got. Steel case we got for everyone in the office years. [47:29] Mark: I'm hearing we can just order a new chair tomorrow. [47:31] Justin: Well, I was gonna say I. In my office, I have a chair from my kitchen table. Can I get a new one? [47:38] JD: Do you remember those orange chairs we had that were like falling? [47:41] Justin: Oh, yeah, yeah. Broke on me when I brought that home. [47:45] JD: I bought them because they were orange. They matched our brand. Bad choice. You got to get the ones that support you, man. So chairs are important. And standing desks. Sorry, that was the subject. Tristan and I have standing desks in Texas. And I'm so lazy. I don't think I've really like raised mine up yet. So I'll have to work, man. [48:06] Chad: Do it. Do it for a call, do it for a meeting, and it will change your. Your impression of them. [48:11] JD: Okay, Brandon, another fin talk, please. I didn't mean any of that. [48:19] Chad: That's just something you say. [48:22] Mark: Watch the movie last night. [48:25] JD: He's saying, You know how you finish that eel? Hey, he's like, I didn't mean any of that, man. [48:35] Justin: That's just. [48:35] JD: He's just saying that [48:38] Justin: that's the worst. When you have questions. [48:41] Chad: Yeah. [48:41] Justin: When you send an email at 4:55 on a Friday and at 5:05, they do send back questions. That's even worse. Why? [48:51] Mark: Yeah, [48:54] JD: Nate's sister has the Shaquille o' Neill chair. I. I got that one for my. Our Texas office. I. I don't know if I agree with you. Who's. [49:04] Justin: There's a Shaquille o' Neal chair. [49:06] Chad: Seriously? What is that? [49:08] Justin: What does that even mean? [49:10] JD: You can get it like that guy. [49:12] Justin: Is it like 7ft tall? I mean, what is it? [49:15] Chad: It's just a big ass shoe. [49:17] Mark: You r. You like. [49:18] JD: Oh, you know what I was going to say. I'm going to let it rip on the sh. [49:20] Justin: No, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't say it. [49:23] JD: It's just a big. Is this a big black chair? [49:27] Justin: No, [49:29] JD: I mean, mine is. It's just a big black. I don't know if it comes in. [49:33] Justin: Tried to stop you. [49:34] JD: Yeah, and I did sit in it at an office. [49:37] Mark: Oh, it comes in tan and black. [49:39] JD: Okay. Okay. And I was like, this does feel great since I brought it. [49:44] Justin: Come with free Papa John's. [49:46] Mark: Dude, it's for 500 bucks. That looks really nice. [49:49] JD: It's no steel case, bro. It's no. It's no Ermine Miller. [49:53] Justin: I will say a Shaquille o' Neal chair sounds way more comfortable than a steel case. Just because the name alone. [50:00] JD: Yeah, fair. We'll bring that up on a. On the drunk stock tip someday. Okay, [50:08] Justin: that's doing. Justin. Right now. [50:10] JD: I'm not gonna dig deeper into the. Into the. Whatever the we were talking about. Oh, stand up. That. No, the emails. No. No. Yeah. So do you finish your emails? Sorry, guys. I pounded 24 ounces of smeared off. [50:26] Justin: Oh, yeah, we know. [50:28] JD: It's. Do you. Do you. Do you finish with Sincerely anymore? That's old. [50:34] Chad: I did regards. I. I did. [50:36] Justin: Today. [50:37] Chad: I did. Today, a gentleman told me that his dad is on hospice and, like, things are. And I was. I was sitting there like that. How do I. How do I finish it? Not thanks. Like, not in. Like. No. So, yeah, I wrote sincerely today. It's probably the first time in decades. [50:52] JD: Okay. But that's a specific sitch. Like, you do. Okay, there's a great question and in chat bar, I'd love to hear. Do you change your. Your. Is that a salutation? No. What is it? A salutation. [51:04] Chad: I do change. [51:05] JD: You change it based on the email you're writing. You know what? [51:10] Chad: I just. I do. You guys are gonna love this. I do some super cheesy too. Like. [51:14] Justin: Yeah, we know. [51:14] Chad: Always in your corner. [51:16] JD: Always in your corner. [51:18] Chad: Excited to help. No, you know, oh, my God. [51:22] Mark: Can you judge me, Cheese dick? [51:24] JD: Can you judge me? This is what I do. And you've probably received it from me at times. And I'm curious. I write thanks with explanation point. I'm not sure why. And then, you know what I do before my signature, which has my name? I write hyphen. Jd. Kind of like what I'm saying to you is instead of just giving you my signature, I took the time to write my name right here. [51:49] Mark: Yeah, I do this. I agree. [51:50] JD: Why? [51:50] Mark: It's like, regards, Justin. And then it says my signature or whatever I want to put there. And so if I don't booty the regards, it's kind of like a you. I don't want to talk to you. Yeah. [51:57] JD: Okay. Okay. So I'm not alone. [51:58] Justin: Good to know. Duly. [52:01] JD: So if someone's not writing their name above their signature, they're telling you to off. [52:07] Mark: That's. That's how I interpret it. [52:09] Chad: That's what I interpret as being lazy. Like, you didn't want to say goodbye to me, so you just didn't put your. [52:15] Justin: I interpret anybody who puts always in your corner as trying too hard. Okay. [52:21] JD: Webby says, please don't hesitate to contact me. [52:23] Chad: I'm crushing it, Mark. [52:24] JD: I. Webby, I used to say that. I say please, I don't care how many. [52:28] Justin: I don't care. [52:30] JD: I'm happy to help is what I used to write a lot. [52:33] Chad: I like that. Yeah, I do that before the thanks buy. [52:36] Mark: I like to say happy to be resource in any way we can. [52:39] Chad: Yeah, what was the. [52:41] Mark: What was the one we used to give Chad for? It's like, hey, I'll, I'll ping you next week or something like. [52:45] Chad: It was ping, right? [52:47] Justin: Chad uses so many bad ones, I can't even keep track. [52:51] Mark: It was when I was living up north training. [52:54] Chad: I love how you guys say I use bad ones, but they all work, guys. [52:58] Justin: It's just proven. I think everybody just feels bad for you. They just, they. They don't understand. [53:03] JD: Right. I do have another subject I forgot before. I want to get out of here. The current from WAVES self promoting here. But I have to. I have to slow you down for a moment and, and make time for a shameless plug. A shameless plug for self promotion. [53:24] Justin: Nice. [53:24] JD: I like that one. Okay, what is this? You can get it free at WAVES AI. You can go there every morning if you want to and just look at it when you go there. Okay, sorry. You can subscribe, you can get it to your inbox five days a week. And this is really a bigger deal than appears on the surface. You might say to yourself, oh, J.D. and Tony have just, you know, created this artificial intelligence powered thing to go scrub all the media in our industry and kind of find the top of the. And put them there. No, no, no, no, no. This was designed with a lot more intellect. It wakes up every morning and it goes to these sources all across the country to start building its project to find out what's the most important news to deliver to a third party administrator or a financial advisor that's really trying to grow their, their practice and be good at what they do. Sources like the Federal Register, the Department of labor, the securities Exchange Commission releases ERISA opinions, docket filings and bills@congress, congress.gov and then, yeah, it'll put all those kind of on her desk. By the way, her name is Blair Kane, the artificial intelligence reporter. This will put it on her desk. [55:00] Justin: Are those initials on purpose? [55:03] JD: Yes. Yes. [55:04] Justin: Yeah, come on. [55:05] JD: And then all these potential articles will sit there on her desk. She will also go out and read if there's any press and press releases and are you ready for this? So then what are you gonna get. And sorry to like pitch this to you, but I don't see me in this like because there's free. I'm not making any money from this. It will give you a like a Switzerland opinion and no bias, you know, just raw take on this information that it thinks is valuable to you. It delivers it in three categories. I think it's retirement distributions and like wealth management or whatever or financial. And then it's. In addition to that, it's supplemented by this, what's called like an operational watch. So it'll also let you know like something operational you should be aware of. And I'll shut up. Like safe harbor deadline is coming up. Or this is coming up. And then it'll take these same. [56:04] Chad: It's actually today. Today it's not coming. [56:07] JD: Yeah, that's why I brought that one up. And then it'll even tell you like, hey, we're gonna. We've worked on these certain subjects in the past and now we're keeping our ear to the ground on for future developments on this. So anyways, remember when we talked about benefits link going down in terms of the newsletter and I know there's others out there, but I just think this is absolute simple, easy genius. And I think everyone fucking sign up for it and get it. Like there's something happening here that's really cool. [56:42] Chad: So yeah, you can't call a shameless plug when it's not actually generating any revenue for. [56:47] JD: I mean it's. [56:47] Chad: It's a gift to the community. [56:49] JD: I said that Chad, and you. That was. I shouldn't have said that like, because you could claim that it's like promotion for waves. So I totally get that. Like I'm trying to make money from it in a sense. [56:58] Justin: But what. [56:59] JD: And you guys can shoot it down. I know you work for me, but please like say anything. I just think I. Neal Anderson would be a great person to comment on this. How does he feel about this kind of artificial intelligence powered. I won't call it journalism. I'll just call it like reporting. [57:18] Chad: You know, it's gathering for you. It's spending the time that you would otherwise spend trying to figure out what to read, where to find it, digest it and then spend time making sense of it. It's doing that legwork for you. I think of it. J.D. nevin's been doing his Tuesday touch points for a while now where he brings five articles. Fred Barnstein was doing that as well like once a week where he was doing his top 10 things you need to know this is another area, except it's daily automated there in your inbox. I love it. I've had. I think I've had three. Two or three of them now that have hit my inbox last two or three days. And I've. [58:00] Mark: Mark, have you gotten one? [58:01] JD: Dude. So Neil. Neil talks about Freddie. Freddie B. And, and by the way, you brought up Nevin. Okay. And I'm not trying to like, cover my tracks here. Nevin writes in such a way that I'm gonna want to read what Nevin writes because he brings this human element to it. I could argue Freddie B. In the same way, just in a different way. Freddie B. Likes to. He likes to poke the bear. He likes to kind of bring up controversial things. [58:34] Justin: What. [58:35] JD: What the current is, is not either. [58:37] Chad: That's fair. That's. It's just giving you access. It's just finding it. [58:41] JD: It's just, hey, this is something that's important. It's Tuesday morning. You need to be aware of it. I've already done the research. I've read 10 articles on it. I've read a Department of labor release. I've. You know, AI can do things that we can't do as humans in terms of scalability and efficiency and timing. And I think that this is a moment of that or an example of it where it makes a lot of sense. Like, yeah, turn the robot loose on this and then that's going to give me value five days a week. And I don't think that takes away. Not that Neil said this from the journalism that might happen from a Nevin or a friend or even what. What Neil's doing. That. That's my two cents. [59:31] Chad: I. I agree. [59:32] JD: Okay. [59:33] Chad: I agree. This kind of. I know we don't have time for it tonight, J.D. but I am genuinely interested in that Meta Muse article or topic I should say that you put out our show, Chad. [59:44] JD: Let's do it. I've missed that one too. God damn it. That Smirnoff got in my way big time. So. [59:51] Justin: I didn't even know they made 24 ounce canes. Shut the up, Justin. [59:55] JD: They do in San Antonio. Everything's bigger in Texas. [59:57] Mark: What are you in San Antonio for, by the way? [1:00:00] Justin: Oh, you were late. [1:00:01] Chad: Yeah. Show up to the show on time, Justin. [1:00:04] JD: Geez. My son and his friends took over the ranch and kicked my wife and I and the two dogs out. [1:00:10] Chad: Yeah. [1:00:11] Justin: And can we. Can we say what they're doing right now? They're watching us like a bunch of losers having a. Oh, I thought you [1:00:18] JD: were gonna say Drugs. [1:00:19] Mark: They made a drinking game out of it, too. What's their. Their drinking game. Should we just start saying a bunch of acronyms or something like that? [1:00:26] Justin: Yeah, you should, Justin. Say it right now. Say a bunch of them right now. [1:00:30] JD: Maybe. Yeah. Wait, what's going on? I don't know. People are talking about me. I'm doing a site visit for. I don't know what's going on. Okay, where the. Oh, meta. Okay, all right. News. Everyone's been giving Facebook slash meta for a while. Like, hey, you got OpenAI, you got Google, Gemini, you've got the Anthropic, and Claude among Prudder. Where. Sucks. Where's Facebook? What's. Where are they at in this whole thing? And then I would say, what it was just earlier this week, maybe late last week, they drop muse on us. And the advertising is very different from what we're used to. I would say for artificial intelligence, they went straight to the consumer, straight to the average person. Kind of pitching this personal assistant. And let me just tell you, since I'm here in San Antonio, my wife, this is going to sound funny because I own an artificial intelligence company. She's not into that shit and she thinks, you know, it's. It's bad. She signed up for it, started using it, booked our trip here to San Antonio on it, booked our tickets for the Alamo tomorrow on it, and linked it to pay for it. [1:02:09] Chad: Oh, hold on, hold on. You keep saying on it, but the point of Muse is you. You. You don't tell it to do these things like it does. [1:02:18] JD: Go do this for me. Go, go, go. Right, Go find me the place, book it, go get my tickets for the Alamo, blah, blah, blah, blah, and said, yes, let's. Let's pay for it. Go ahead and do it. She did that. And then I'll. One other thing. I tried to use it because, you know, I'm a huge. I'm into this. And I said, I connected it to my email for. For waves. It's at Google. You can connect it to your Outlook, too. Brandon doesn't want us to do that, but you can. And I said, hey, can you review my email for the last week? And I'd like you to let me know, like, the five top things that you think maybe I've missed or outstanding, that I. That need my attention. And I kind of knew what they were in the back of my head. And I, by the way, I've done this before with Claude in Outlook and with Copilot, and it's. It failed. I I was horrible. I. I was really disappointed. I did it with Muse and it shocked me. I was like, oh, my God, that is exactly what I need to. My attention needs to be on. That is, I do need to get back to that person. I did promise I would schedule a demo of that person. I was. It just nailed it. And I was like, holy. So I will shut up. Have you all looked at this at all? Have you tried it? No. Justin says no. Chad, I didn't know it was a [1:03:48] Justin: thing until you mentioned it in that email. Yeah. [1:03:50] Mark: And I noticed thing until this morning. I saw a post giving it because it's downloading everyone's personal chats. And oh yeah, I was like, what the. Is Muse okay? [1:04:01] Justin: But it can go back and think about all those, like, I guess headlines of when Zuckerberg was basically plucking high ranking people throughout all these tech companies to come. This was the team he was building. It sounds like this was. Was the big. Here's what we're getting into thing, I imagine. [1:04:22] JD: And let's see if we can finish on. And Justin's. And I'm sorry if my Internet sucks. Nate said I froze. [1:04:31] Justin: Did Nate. [1:04:31] JD: Did Nate. [1:04:32] Justin: Come on as Nate's sister. Did he do that for real? [1:04:35] Mark: I think he's. [1:04:35] JD: He. [1:04:35] Chad: He's. Oh, he's tip to tip right now. [1:04:38] Justin: Both. [1:04:38] JD: Both. Okay. This is a serious question. You. You know, we've talked a bit about this in the past. Mostly me and you, Silent J. I agree. Facebook has a history of really using your data for their own good. And I've told you this before, in a way, I appreciated that. Like, I think in the past, many years ago, I told you if I was driving down the road in my truck and my. My. And Facebook let me know that there was a surfboard for sale down the street that met all of my requirements because it knew a lot about me and that it was a good sale. Like, I'd say, I like that. That's what I love about Muse right now. It knows my. And it prized deep into it. I was looking at tractors. I was looking at tractors without its knowledge. Well, not true, apparently. And then it said, hey, I can help you go look for some tractors in your area. And I sent it out to do it. It did a great job. But what I'm telling you is that's offending a lot of people. That's why I love it. [1:05:47] Mark: No, I mean, that's a great assistant. [1:05:49] JD: Efficient. That's. [1:05:51] Mark: You're not gonna. I'm not gonna deny that, but it's what? You know, obviously, we've talked about this in the past. Did we lose you, pal? [1:05:57] Chad: Keep going. [1:06:00] JD: But it's also, for a moment there, [1:06:02] Mark: but they're doing behind the scenes. [1:06:05] Justin: It's. [1:06:05] Mark: It kind of feels like it's a smoke and mirrors thing. Like, hey, look what we're doing over here. [1:06:08] Chad: Let's go. Great. [1:06:09] Mark: It's great. But don't pay attention to the. We're doing behind the scenes. [1:06:16] JD: Yeah, I'm kind of. [1:06:18] Chad: I don't know. And I don't know what they're doing behind the scenes. If I look. If I take this at the surface level for what it's providing, just the minimal research I did on it, I was excited as super cool. [1:06:32] Mark: You cannot deny that at all. [1:06:34] Chad: Yeah. So the examples. Jd, I asked. I asked Chat, if I were to use Muse, like, how would I use it? And it came back and it gave me the top five things. The number one thing was for your conference and travel management. I can. Muse can follow in my calendar, know when I've signed up for a conference. It can figure out what hotel the conference is at. It can book my hotel, it can book my travel. Those things. It came back and said, for your weekly sales prep, we know where you're pulling your data from on psychosense. It knows we know where you're pulling your data from here. If you were to give Muse access, it could prep you for your sales meeting every Monday morning by putting all these psychotic. [1:07:12] Mark: That it has access to all that shit. [1:07:14] Chad: It doesn't have access. I have to give it. No, Justin, I'm not using Muse at all. I'm using Chat. But I use Chat to set up the structure of our sales meetings and different things. So it's. Chat is just saying this is how you could use Muse. And it says, the difference between me and Muse is Muse is a do this for me, and Chad is an answer this for me. That's what it told me its difference was. [1:07:38] JD: Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to. [1:07:41] Justin: Don't you love that you're asking an artificial intelligence agent about another artificial intelligence? [1:07:47] Chad: It's like talking to your girlfriend about your wife. [1:07:49] Justin: I wish it was. I wish Chat would have came back and said, go figure it out yourself. You. [1:07:58] JD: Hey, we'll have to push this to another show, but I think there's a lot to unpack here. And, Justin, I. What you're talking about is data, obviously. And Data. As someone who's focused on AI for the last two and a half years, I'll drink. Data is what runs this. So now we're coming to this head. Yeah, no, no, I know you do, and you're totally right. But we are coming to this head of, like, if you're going to have a real Jarvis from the, you know, Tony Stark movies, right? If it's gonna have to know your. [1:08:31] Mark: And I get. And if that's where it stopped, cool. But we know that's not where it stops, and that's my problem with it. [1:08:38] Justin: Right? [1:08:38] JD: And then we get to. Then we get to Arnold. [1:08:41] Justin: And the beauty of. [1:08:43] Mark: Of Jarvis is it's only Tony Stark, right? [1:08:49] Chad: Well, yeah, it's. So Zuckerberg could say the same thing. The beauty of Muse is that it's only mine. [1:08:55] JD: No, no, no. [1:08:56] Chad: We're not billionaires. [1:08:58] Justin: No, no, no. [1:08:59] JD: Now you're talking. [1:09:00] Justin: Are you trying to be Zuck right now? That was good, dude. [1:09:04] JD: You're talking about, like, close verse, open. And by the way, that's a real thing we can talk about. [1:09:08] Mark: It's just a massive invasion of privacy. That's what it is. [1:09:11] JD: Like, you could have your own. [1:09:12] Mark: Turn on your cameras and shit. Like, you guys have. No. There's no reason you should have any access to my private life unless I [1:09:19] Justin: give it to you. [1:09:20] JD: Justin's up to some weird. Okay, [1:09:25] Mark: let's. [1:09:25] JD: Let's vote for a chapter champion real quick, and let's keep it to the, you know, 300 people that are still here. I think. I mean, Neil could go back to back. He's been very valuable. I'm gonna vote for Nate's sister, but I don't even know who that is. [1:09:41] Mark: Yep, [1:09:43] Chad: Chad, I. I said it early, and he held his own the entire show. And I'm going with Webby for sure. [1:09:51] JD: Roby. [1:09:52] Justin: Webby. [1:09:53] JD: Webby. Okay, Webby and Nate's sister, head to head. Finish this. Tip to tip. [1:10:01] Justin: Yeah. Oh, you're touching. Oh, that's right. I have a. All right, let's make it topical. I guess if the four of us up here decided tomorrow to start the next collective, what would that collective be called? And you can't call it the Roby Collective, and you can't use the word collective. Go, go. [1:10:27] JD: And speed helps speed. [1:10:29] Justin: Yeah. Be quick. [1:10:31] JD: Well, Webby and. No, you can't use collective. Webby. [1:10:40] Justin: Damn it, Webby. You were so good, though. [1:10:44] JD: Tahoe this. That's the. That's the name of the group. Tahoe this. I don't know. [1:10:51] Mark: I mean, that. That's just not actually an 8 system. [1:10:54] JD: Put in your official thing. Webbing. [1:10:57] Mark: I think that was his official and [1:10:59] JD: don't forget, there's a nerdy Chad desk organizer on the line there. [1:11:04] Chad: I want a nerdy Chad desk organizer. I need one here. [1:11:09] Justin: The tips. The tips. Yeah. [1:11:10] JD: Oh, yeah, yeah, Right. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sister. That was just a bad answer. Webby, you are the winner. And by the way, who are you? [1:11:21] Chad: Who? [1:11:21] Justin: What? What? Chris Horse were you part of. [1:11:23] JD: Just the tips, Webby. Don't tell me you can't take. But just for a second, I just [1:11:29] Mark: wanted to see how it felt. [1:11:31] JD: Don't tell me you can't take a gift that's a cheesy little desk organizer. Yeah, we're gonna. I don't give a. What you say. I'm. [1:11:39] Mark: That might be the least expensive thing you've ever sent out after one of these. [1:11:42] JD: No, It's. It's like 24. Okay, everyone, thanks for tuning in. We're the retireholics. We're changing the retirement plan industry. One 24 ounce Smirnoff can at a time. Thank you for tuning in. We love you. We. We appreciate you, and we want to touch tips with you. So touch tips with us next time. That'll be the third Thursday of the month. We'll be touching tips with you. Have a touching tip. Great. Ending week, who's our guest for the [1:12:13] Mark: next guest Again, this has been a great day. [1:12:17] Justin: Do we have a guest for our next show in two weeks? [1:12:21] JD: Yeah, yeah, if we do. [1:12:22] Justin: But I'll. [1:12:23] JD: I'll let you know when it comes out. It's. It's a leader of a large national lobbyist group. Yeah. [1:12:33] Justin: Boring. [1:12:36] JD: I'm talking. I'm talking ar. [1:12:39] Justin: I don't know, man. I don't know, man. Lobbies are pretty boring. Just saying something big. [1:12:43] JD: Okay, bye. [1:12:44] Justin: Bye. [1:12:45] Mark: Hold on. [1:12:46] Justin: Good music. [1:12:46] Mark: Brandon, ring him up again. [1:12:48] Justin: Mark. [1:12:50] Mark: Good. [1:12:51] Justin: You know what? [1:12:52] Mark: Yeah. [1:12:52] Chad: He's gonna do it anyways. I need to see the music. Play us out. B. Night fell.