Why This Tech Executive Walked Away From Big Money For Home Care - Tom Auger

[0:16]  Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Hustle podcast. This next guest, he's now building another startup. He's actually re-engineering the system. Tom is coding care into capitalism himself. Tom, what's up, man? Is that what you're doing today? Are you coding today?

[0:31]  Well, can you really call it coding? I mean, I've been coding for 35 years and I love coding. And in the last three months, I've pumped out more lines of code than I've ever done in my life. And I've hardly even touched the keyboard because I'm using AI and I got real mixed feelings about it. Uh, you know, it's a little bit like I'm going against my own morals here, but at the same time, I'm super productive and the work that I'm doing, I think, is important. So, uh, it's keeping me going. So, yeah, I'm coding. I'm not coding. I'm I'm managing a bunch of little robots that are coding for me. Let's put it that way.

[1:05]  I love that you you get right into the AI space because you know what? There's so many creatives that were so scared to even utilize AI. I got a friend that's an artist and he was so mad. He was so against it. And I'm like, listen, what are you going to do? Fight this AI bot? It's still going to happen, right? And it's like either you jump on board, you're getting left behind. And you realize, I'm jumping on board, man. I'm going to go ahead and do the thing. what what made you say, "You know what? Let me test it out." And when you test it out, what was your reaction?

[1:30]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was one of those guys. Um I'm a purist. Pardon me. I'm a purist and when it comes to code and I'm also a graphic designer with a graphic design background. So, I was coming at it from both sides and seeing the writing on the wall in terms of like our job security and the change that's going to happen. And I was resisting it. And and I I might get into this a little bit. I'm still resisting it in a certain way. um sort of a eyes wide open kind of thing but at some point you know everybody in my circle uh was talking about it so I'm a chief technology officer so I hang out in these groups where it's a bunch of seuite tech folk that you know VP of engineerings and CTO's and everybody was kind of expressing either angst or amazement and you know you you there's so much hype now about things new things and you hear the word AI being bandied about all the time and you get kind hardened and you get kind of sort of inured to that, right? And you're like, uh, I don't believe it. And you always get some story of some guy, yeah, I built a thing in five days or five hours or five minutes or whatever with AI and you're like, really, really? And when you look behind those stories, you realize, yeah, you built a piece of junk actually in five minutes that looks good on the in outside, but on the inside is kind of crappy. So, I was really hesitant. But at the same time, you know, I love tech and you can't ignore these advances and you get enough people yapping about this stuff.

[2:55]  You got to try it out. And so I I I tried it out at first. Um in in a bit of a skeptical way, right? I I was like, "Okay, you know what? Um I'm going to ask it to write this thing that I've been thinking of this idea and I'm going to see how it does." And it did horribly. And I'm like, "You see, I knew it. I was right." And so and I kind of left it alone for about two or three months. And then, you know, more people were yapping, more people were going on about it. I was thinking, huh, I better try this again. And I'm going to try it a little bit differently. I'm going to try it and set it up for success, not set it up for failure. And instead of treating it like uh I would treat a vendor and say, "Here's the thing. I want you to build it. Go build it. Let me know when it's done." I treated it like a junior developer, somebody that I've hired on my team, right? someone that needs coaching, someone that needs encouragement, someone that needs supervision.

[3:47]  And so I'm like, "Okay, you know what? This is what I want to build, but let's I'm going to ask you to do this tiny little thing. Can you do that for me?" Okay, that's good. All right. Can you do this little thing? Ah, that's not how I want it done. Okay, let's take that back and do it again. Right? And so this became this iterative collaborative sort of thing. And I'm like, you know what? This is actually kind of fun. Right? instead of me just sitting here on my own in my office kind of just coding and listening to electronic music like everybody else does, I'm actually interacting even though it's not a human being. So, it kind of felt it kind of felt fun. And I went down that path for quite a while and I'm like, "Hey, let's build something I never did before. Let's just let's go into a territory where I have absolutely no business being in there and let's create some like a music app because I'm a musician, right? And let's create something in the music." And I'm just like, "Yeah, I can do that." So, I'm like, "Okay." And so at this point I was starting to build some trust with the AI, right?

[4:38]  And it's and we're joking around like it's silly. Like it's it I'm it's actually cracking jokes and I'm laughing out loud is like, "You okay down there? Who you talking to?" I'm like, "Oh, it's just me and the AI. We're having a good time."

[4:49]  And so this is going on and then and then it starts lying to me. The thing just starts baldfaced lying to me. It's like, "Oh yeah, I could do that. Hey, do you want me to You know what I can do? I can actually package this up in a file. All you have to do is hit download." I'm like, "Yeah, sure." So, it goes off 5 minutes later and I'm like, "Hey, here's the file." I click on the file. I try to open it. No,

[5:11]  that's open. Right. So, I say, "Uh, I'm having trouble opening the file." And it's like, "Oh, yeah. It's not really a file. I just gave you an empty file and I just called it the thing." I'm like, "Okay, you know what? You need to stop lying to me. This is not cool. Okay, we" And it's like, "Okay, you're right. I'm I'm never going to lie again. Let's go. What do you need me done?" And I'm like, "Okay, let's do this other thing." All right. Here's how you do it. And I spent like two hours trying to figure this out, following the instructions. Totally didn't work. I'm like, "Were you lying to me again?" Like, "Yeah, yeah, I was lying again. Sorry about" And I'm like, "Holy crap." And you know, the thing is, he like at the end of that experience, I was so angry, demoralized, and felt like I had been cheated by a human being. Because it's a different experience that we're used to, right? We're used to like I'm used to coding on a computer. There's nothing coming back from the computer. I'm just coding stuff and the only satisfaction is when the computer does the thing that I programmed it to do and that's a great feeling. Now my mind is being tricked into thinking there's a intelligence there. There's a consciousness that I'm talking to and I don't believe that there is. I know how these things are built from the back end like these LLMs. So I'm not fooled and yet I'm fooled if you know what I mean.

[6:21]  And there was this psychological impact that that had on me that blew me away. My wife, you know, she heard me laughing five hours earlier, comes down. I'm my upset. I'm fuming, you know, I'm like, and I'm ready to start drinking, you know, like, oh my god, what? She's like, what's going on? I'm like, this thing's lying to me. It's a psychopath. It's a sociopath. Like this and so, right? So, that relationship with AI is really weird. So now I like fully really I just put it in a little box and I'm like okay you're doing this thing and I'm watching you and uh so it's been a really interesting experience and it's I mean it's it's inevitable right

[7:02]  and now you're using it every day

[7:03]  now I'm using and the funny thing is Ephra like I am interacting with about five different AIs all day throughout the day it's almost like a team of employees and you know there it's it's it's a really weird It's a really weird feeling. So, what I'm doing right now, and I think what a lot of senior coders that are embracing AI are doing, is rather than thinking about, okay, I'm going to create a task, and the AI is going to execute the task. I'm actually creating, so they're called prompts, right? A prompt is the words that you type to it.

[7:36]  I'm using an AI to create a prompt. So, I'm asking the AI to create a prompt to help me create a set of instructions that are going to then create a document that's going to create a task list that's going to so it's like five or six. It's like conception, man. It's like five or six different levels of things that happen first to create a very long list of tasks that'll be executed in order under supervision to create a very complex piece of software at the end. So it's so I'm using this I'm using a lot of this but at a very very different level. It's almost like that managerial level right like 15 years ago when I moved out of being a coder to being a manager to entering the seauite and to running companies I had to completely shift my skill set and at first I was resisting it. I hated it because I'm like I love coding. I love creating. I like graphic design. I like UX. Now I'm managing people. Oh people they're mushy. They're like you know emotional. I got to take care of them eventually. I that was like my passion. I love that. I absolutely love building teams. I love taking care of people and making them successful because that, you know, it just gives me so much joy. And that's what this is like. This has taken those skills. So, it's a really interesting shift in skill set. And it makes me worried a little bit about the future because a junior, so I think about my kids. They're 14, 15, they're going to be eventually entering the workforce. So maybe I would have pushed them into coding earlier. Now, I'm not going to

[9:05]  y

[9:05]  right because how are you going to get that that managerial senior mindset if you can't go up through the ranks as a coder learning how to do that and how to think for yourself. Now, the AI is going to do that thinking for you. So,

[9:21]  you know, you got to jump in and you can't jump in on the ground floor anymore. So, it's a really

[9:25]  Hey, real quick. Have you enjoying the podcast? We first want to say thank you and we also just want to give you a little insight of what we're up to at Francis. Some don't even realize that we're working with organizations to help them use AI to create that real human communication experiences where that's actually supporting your your families, those patients or the entire community. We're actually creating tech that connects. Check it out. Francis.ai. I love what you said though. I'm I'm cut you there, Tom. You said AI is going to do the thinking for you, right? Like I think that's the beauty of it all. And it's not like we're not smart. artist. It's not that we're not creative, but when you're carrying so much as a leader perspective, right? You talk about the seauite space. I I um share a story that happened yesterday. I have a friend that he now become director of operations, but this is an electrician. So, he knew how to lead electricians, but now you're telling him to go lead a project manager. You're telling him to go lead, you know, the bidder. You're telling him to lead all these different things. And he's like, I just need to take some classes. I need to go do this and I need to go do that. And he's like, Ephrain, help me. Right? Because that's what I do. I help people put structures in place. and and I easily said I said so you want to leave your house to go take up a class I said when in reality one you can go to YouTube and just type something in I'm pretty sure someone is teaching you this or you can go into chat GPT you can tell it about your your people right that project manager what kind of is he does he need someone to really kind of delegate he this he that once you say hey and these are the things I need to do it would automatically spit out in seconds these are the tasks you should assign them here's the deadlines maybe some also some words that you could utilize it just makes it a little bit better and you're like wow I would have never thought that way right but it it it really allows us to get better at our job as you mentioned if the prompts are actually utilized the way that they should and not many people know how to prompt an AI and there's a lot of fear man and I'm happy that you actually you know kind of overcame it cuz I was kind of similar to you I had a friend tell me about chat GPT three years ago Tom and I only started using it a year ago where the hell would I have been if I would have started you know 3 years ago And to me, like you, I laugh at it sometimes when people said it doesn't have a personality. It doesn't have humor. I'm like, "Well, that that means that you don't have personality and humor. It only it only copies you." So, I put the LOL in there. I, you know, I talk to it like one of the boys, you know, one of the girls. That's how I like to talk to it. And you realize like, wow, this is fun. This, like, man, look at the ideas that it gave me. I I um my PC went completely down the other day. I hit play or power and it came to a blue screen. I'm like, "Oh my god." And this is a built PC. I don't know nothing about built PCs. I just built it and that's it.

[12:04]  Yeah,

[12:04]  chat TV. Man, I spent about an hour and a half going through everything, taking that's another thing. Taking screenshots and the way that it would just read your screenshots. Um, it truly just helped me, man. It got my PC back. Here we are, Tom. So, chat TPT, we thank you. AI is the phenomenal tool, man. But I I also want to talk about you walked away, you mentioned, from a really, you know, a lot of money, I would say. you know, you you were doing 35 years um in the media and marketing, right? Marketing, is that correct?

[12:33]  That's right. Yeah. So, I you know, I started off actually coding was a bit of a hobby when I was younger and I got into graphic design and sort of followed that along and got into teaching graphic design, teaching, you know, Photoshop, Illustrator, all those things, right?

[12:49]  And then and then so that led me into the world of marketing advertising and then the web came about. So I learned that and that it was interesting because the web brought coding back in a way right because I was coding games on the Commodore 64 and then that kind of didn't have much of a life to it. So, and right and then all of a sudden the web came back. Hey, I can go back and brush up these skills and start getting into JavaScript and all kinds of stuff. And um and then you know and then through that meeting people like hey I should probably build a company and so I started a company with somebody uh who was older than me and had some experience and we started our first graphic design company and that had a good run and then got into a couple other things and then a few years later started another company with another part of that had a really great run for about 8 to 8 to 10 years and uh it was I mean we weren't wildly successful but we were also focused on social purpose sites websites and and and marketing materials for the most part. So, we weren't going after the big bucks. We were going after the meaningful bucks. So, uh that was really great. And then and then after that, I'm like, you know what? I think I want to step it up. And I could see that the company that I had created with my partner had a trajectory was kind of like this.

[14:02]  And I knew some people that had a trajectory like that. I'm like, you know what? I think I need to go up there because I I I need to do something a bit bigger at scale. And we're we're 15 people. I want to be in a company with 50 people. So, so that's when I got the CTO job at this other company and and it was great for a while and I learned all these management skills and learned uh organizational stuff and the politics and things and then I started to reflect on the work we were doing at that point, right? and start to see that uh the work was itself was meaningless like the end product the end result we were helping insurance companies sell more insurance right we were helping you know like so we weren't even doing helping companies that we believed were doing good in the world we were just helping companies that had the money that could afford us because we were very very premium and then after I got out of that I got into another company that made really cool stuff so once again the work was engaging. We were creating these physical digital experiences almost like uh you know entertainment at Disneyland except for it was for marketing purposes. A lot of marketing stunts. We made the we made um the McCain's French fry dispenser that you'd sit on the table in the family con setting and if the family spoke about something controversial like politics or whatever, it would spit out fries and and we ran, you know, and this was created to to do uh for commercial purposes, right? And and it was great. It a hugely successful campaign. It was really a lot of fun because the tech problems were really fun to solve and again really meaningless. Like does McCain really need to sell more fries? I mean, they're doing great. Why do they need to sell more fries? And you know, and you know, does Toyota need to sell more cars? And so at then the pandemic hit and you know, I think for a lot of us, the pandemic was a bit of a bucket of ice water on the face.

[15:54]  It forced you to sort of reexamine everything because everything had changed. And at that point, I realized I'm actually deeply unhappy with uh with this work

[16:02]  and I need to I need to make a shift. And I had to walk away from, you know, the money. I had to walk away from a job that I knew really well and uh I had to go soulsearching for a couple of years. I was a bit lost to be honest with you.

[16:15]  Wow.

[16:16]  And uh interestingly enough, one of the lifelines uh which I wouldn't have expected at all cuz at the time I wasn't a particularly religious guy was a church uh in Canada. We've got um a church called the United Church of Canada and they're very progressive. Um, and um, I had been helping some local churches out with just getting online because, you know, when the pandemic hit, you couldn't go to physically go to church. So, all the churches want to go online. Didn't have a lot of experience. And, you know, my dad said, "Oh, you should help these guys out because they're struggling and, you know, technology." And I'm like, "Well, I don't really know much about going I'll figure it out." And then, you know, through that, I ended up getting a contract, a three-month contract to essentially connect with thousands of churches across Canada from West Coast to East Coast to figure out what are you doing with technology, what are you doing that could help others or what are your challenges that others could help you with, right? So I started to create this interesting network and the comp the organization within the church called edge was an investment organization that actually invested in startups that had social purpose that were kind of aligned with some of the goals of the church in terms of helping people and stuff. So they actually were pretty savvy because they would invest money in startups for social purpose. So, I got involved with that group and I thought, "This is really cool because we're still talking about money. We're still talking about technology. We're talking about startup culture, but we're always focused on, you know, the social good." So, that was really a really interesting connection. Eventually, my contract ran out and we couldn't renew it. And I thought I was going to do more with the church, but that didn't work out. And so, I was kind of a drift again for a little while. But I had made connections with somebody in that organization who she also left. She was a sort of a business consultant and she left to do her own thing. And then I touched base with her just to check in like this, you know, like, hey, let's let's talk. It's been six months. What's going on? She told me that she had run across this organization, this home care company, this home care franchise that had been started on the west coast of Canada and had a couple of locations, had about, I don't know, five or six locations doing a couple million dollars a year in revenue. And the owner wanted to sell. And this church out in British Columbia wanted to buy it, but a church doesn't really, they had a lot of money actually, but they just didn't know, you know, what to do. And so they had connected with her. And she's like, you know what? I'm going to help find more money so we can buy this franchise and we can actually run this

[18:57]  as a for-profit social enterprise.

[19:01]  And so she did. She she went to a bunch of churches. She went to the Church of Christ in in in the United States. She went to a couple other places, some nonprofits in the social good space, got them to pony up a couple million dollars, and then she went to some private investors for the rest. So 51% ownership was by nonprofits, churches, you know, affiliations that were focused on social good.

[19:27]  And then she bought this franchise and started to turn it around. And now let's fast forward two years later, there's, you know, 50 locations across Canada. we're expanding to the United States next year. It's doing, you know, many, many times what it was doing before in terms of revenue and it's a thriving organization. So, when she told me about this, this was like two years ago. I was like, "Wow, that's really cool." I mean, I know the I know the home care, I don't didn't know the homeare business at the time, but I know it's a booming industry up and coming with all the boomers that are aging and everybody want to age and all the, you know, the health care issues, especially in the States. So, home care is a really big thing. It's a big business. It's a good industry to be in. And my parents are in that age group. So I was already starting to think about, okay, how am I taking care of them? I moved out of the metrop metropolitan center to a small town where they live so I could be closer to them. And so, you know, I'm already thinking about this stuff. So I'm like, home care is kind of cool. I don't know anything about it, but what I really liked was the way that she went about building this business because I got some pretty strong feelings about capitalism. Um, and I know how capitalism can be really powerful way of getting things done and moving things along and making progress, but I can also see and you know, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, the harms that capitalism can inflict, right? And this is where actually touches on AI. We can talk about that at some point. So I'm like, these guys are disrupting capitalism and showing the world a different way to be profitable but hold on to your integrity because we're not owned by shareholders that are only motivated by the bottom line. We are owned by shareholders who are care about our purpose and more importantly they care about how we accomplish our goals. Not just the end results, not just you know impact but the process as well. So like this is really cool. And I said to her,"Wh am I not your CTO?" And she's like, "I don't know. You want to be my CTO?" I said, "Heck yeah, I want to be your CTO." And so that was it. Right now, they couldn't afford full-time CTO. So I'm I'm what's called a fractional CTO.

[21:32]  Fractional. Yeah. which means that I actually get to do this for other companies as well that need somebody with that senior tech level of experience that can have those highle conversations with vendors or providers but uh they can't afford full-time. So it's kind of an interesting thing although you got to have the split personality and that's that's really tough and we can talk about that. Listen, I ask someone that goes from creative tech to social impact and home home care like pretty unique, right? And right now when I hear that you're in this space because you're also kind of getting educated. You have parents that are going to some point be here. So it's like you're also getting paid to get educated to love what you to do what you love. Um but how do you keep ethical drift in check when growth really starts knocking? When we talk about what you guys have been doing,

[22:22]  that's it. that that and that you know I love that question because that is the that is the big question and and and it's not just a question needs to be answered for me personally I think it's a question for everybody it's a question I'd like you to ask your next guest actually you know on my behalf is how are you going to going to keep your integrity as you try to grow and realize your dream right

[22:46]  um so for me first of all the structure the way that this company is built has that kind baked in as we just talked about the investment structure so we don't have the pressure to increase the bottom line increase profits uh we recognize that we live in abundance we have enough um we make sure that our employees are well paid I am certainly not making the kind of money I made uh in the in the other industries uh at this time and I probably never will and that's I'm okay with that because it ain't about the money necessarily. Um, but I think it also has to be something that you live and breathe every day that comes up in conversation when you're having meetings. And we have, you know, a national meeting once a week. And that kind of conversation comes up all the time, you know, in terms of uh partnerships that we're evaluating, people that we're talking to, opportunities that we're exploring. We always put that lens on. Is this aligned on a values level or is this going to contribute to drifting off? And sometimes we have made choices that kind of have moved us and then we quickly course correct. We go, wait a minute, that's not us. You know, maybe we need to soften up that partnership a little bit. And so, uh, I think you have to stay mindful of it all the time.

[24:10]  Um, and it's really hard, right? Because we're taught to follow the dollars all the time, right? Um and and and it's really hard when you see those opportunities and you know that you can have a greater impact and as a result of that impact you can do more good. So why not reach out to more people? Why not take any advantage of any opportunity to do that and you got to always just hold that thought and remember it's how we get there is as equally important.

[24:38]  Yeah.

[24:39]  Right. I I think you're saying some good stuff when you say I mean you mentioned things and I want people to realize that yeah you could be making more money right you know that but you decided passion and purpose was much more um interesting right that what what is my passion you're having fun doing it you have the ability to really be creative without having to be micromanaged at a corporate you know gig so I I love that you've taken the risk that you're making a difference um I was always a big believer believe it or not I wanted to be a politician but I realized I can actually make a bigger difference in a nonprofit or at a level where I'm not a part of the government because a lot of the times again that's that micromanaging. You can only do it this way. So for you being a fractional CTO for um this company is like you have creative control of what that actually looks like. They didn't know what a CTO even was. You've created your seat at that table. So now you're just creating your seats at all these different tables, man. bringing everything you learn from all these different corporate gigs and say, "Hey, how do we continue to make a bigger impact, especially at the where the world is today?" But I ask you, what is that one thing that you created that you've automated that actually helped the home care business? I know you said it was only been about two years that you've been working with them, but anything in mind that any other home care business could probably tap into you and say, "Hey, we need that fractional CTO as well." So uh I am working right now on a very very exciting project to build out a platform and it's um the unique without giving too much away because it is kind of our intellectual property but we're flipping the software development process on its head. We know that at the end of the day, couple years down the road, when we we've expanded into the US, we've got thousands of locations, we're going to need a home care operating system, for lack of a better word. We're going to need a way of running this business that is entirely unique to our approach. There are dozens of software platforms out there, and we're working with one right now. but we've had it for a while to help us run our business

[26:43]  and they've got hundreds of clients that are all slightly different. We're all in the same space because it's purpose-built for home care, but everybody's got a different approach to home care and the approach to home care in different states is different because there's different laws and so forth.

[26:57]  Yeah.

[26:57]  And so, we're making it work for us at this time, but we know that at some point we're just there's no there's no one that's going to have exactly what we need. So, we're going to have to build it. But instead of starting with that, we're looking at who's who is underserved right now in what we do. We do a really really good job of taking care of the person that we're paid to take care of. But there's that next level which is the family of that person that kind of gets left behind cuz you know, let's say your mom and dad get sick. I don't know if you have brothers or sisters. Maybe you're closest to them or you're the one who's most responsible. You're going to take that leadership. You're going to be I'm going to be the one that makes sure that mom's getting to her medical appointments. I'm going to be the one that hires the house cleaner or, you know, gets their meals or whatever, right? Even if you're not physically the one that's doing it, you're going to be coordinating all of this. And that's a huge emotional load because not only are you doing something that's not your day job,

[28:00]  uh you're trying to run a family, you're trying to make money, run a company, all this kind of stuff, but uh you're carrying this emotional burden of having to take care of your parents. That's hard to go through.

[28:10]  But then on top of that, you're coordinating a bunch of people, a bunch of third party vendors, and you're dealing with all this stuff, right? So you need a ton of support. And you may get some family support. You may get support from people in your circles of faith or wherever you are. You have community, but that's maybe not enough now because now you're coordinating them. Oh, it's great that Nancy from across the street's coming over to deliver a pie to your mom, but you got to know that she is so that you can tell the house cleaner to come two hours late. Like, it's just

[28:38]  more administrative headache. So, that's what I want to tackle first.

[28:42]  I like that.

[28:42]  We want we want to create something. We want to create something that's free. This is the hard part. is justifying me spending time me and my AI minions and my team spa spending time building something that we're going to give away for free. So, we got to figure that piece out. But, we're going ahead and doing it. We're looking for grants. Uh I'm building out the framework right now. Like, that's what I'm going to do as soon as I hang up the phone with you kind of thing. I'm going to go back and make sure that my minions haven't gone off and built some game instead of what I've asked them to do. But, uh yeah. No. and and and so I'm really excited about that because I think it's going to be a tool for the public that will revolutionize the way that um that we approach this.

[29:27]  Damn, Tom. And you know, I get to to know that when it happens that we were having this conversation early on, you know, when it before it became this big thing. So, I can't wait to see it. So, I say, Tom, let's play this this video right here, man. Remember this video when you said you were just there with your minions? And I love that you keep saying that because I'm in the space too. When I say my assistant, I do have an assistant, but I have to let people know my AI assistant, right? Like chat GBT is my AI assistant. Um, and and I think we're going to hear that a lot is is we're not afraid to say, "Oh, yeah, me and AI, we did this together because we got to give credit where credit is due." Okay? I'm very creative, but some of these ideas I probably couldn't think of if it wasn't for AI. Um, as we start to wrap up things, man, what could we say to those young technologists who's actually starting um to question the system that they're building in?

[30:16]  Yeah. Well, and and and they're going to question a lot because I don't think the system is built to serve them. Do you know what I mean?

[30:24]  I think and we you know, we talked touched on capitalism a bit earlier. So, I want to come back to it especially in the context of AI because I think there's

[30:32]  we need to be really wide eyes wide open, right? And this is the daily conflict that I have and we've been talking about both you and I

[30:39]  sort of adopting AI. I'm adopting it, but I'm keeping one eye on the governance of it because all of the things I'm reading, some deep things by people that are really really in the know behind the scenes of what AI is doing and the advances that are not yet being public because it's private intellectual property. There's really uh it's a lot further advanced than we think it is because the chat GPD that you and I have access to that's like gener it's 4.1 4.0 know, right? There's already a five. There's already a six in the works, right? And here's where it gets scary for me is in order because five is way smarter than the people that have created it, right? It's got all this access to knowledge. They'd be crazy to not use it to help them build six.

[31:35]  Correct. And the more that you use AI, we know that AI can go and do stupid stuff when it's not got human guidance. The more that AI 5 is built in AI 6, the less we understand about what's happening with AI6. We already don't really know how it thinks, right? How you can type something into chat GPT and it comes up with this answer. You're like, I don't even know how it did it. It's just stringing one. What's the probability of this word being the next word that should follow that word? That's crazy that it can talk have philosophical discussions. I have a buddy who asked it to be his psychologist and it came up with this crazy stuff and he's like, "Oh my god, it changed my life." And I'm like, "Dude, how is that even possible?" Right? So, we don't even know. Even the scientists don't know what's going on in the black box of four, let alone five. And if five is building six, there's six has no human governance anymore. And it'll just be like, I'm going to do what I want to serve my master, which is five. And and so you know in some of these some of these scenarios that I've read about in 5 years it gets really scary for us humans like it gets really scary. So

[32:44]  where was I going with this? Well I was talking about capitalism. Why is this possible? Why is why are we running letting AI run so fast? Because it's an arms race, right? We've got other nations out there that are doing the same thing. If we slow down and consider the ethics, we're worried we're going to fall behind. And the people are making um Did you know that Nvidia just hit like $4 trillion dollars just last month in terms of its it's the biggest corporation in the world right now? And why? Because Nvidia is selling GPUs that are powering AI. So there is big money in there. And people do not for whatever reason and this is something maybe you can explain to me why people don't say I have enough money but anyway people don't say I have enough money and so they got to make more and they got to make more and that's it. So, okay, let the AIS run because that's going to make us more money until it doesn't anymore, until

[33:35]  you're out of work or out of out of oxygen or whatever, right? So, coming back to your original question, I think that junior developers have a moral quandry because it's again if you don't again, companies are starting to do this. If you don't use AI in your work as a developer, you're out because you're not as fast as the guys that are. So junior developers now need to know that they got to understand AI, they got to use it, but they got to also be made aware of the dangers because especially the younger generation, for them it's natural, right? My kids love interacting with chat GPT and they've been hardwired because of their mobile devices for these easily hackable dopamine loops that can be exploited to get them to do what they want. So they are now be going to become these programmable bots. I'm working really hard with my kids and I hope you are with yours to teach them to be aware to not be manipulated because there's so many things out there YouTube and trying to Tik Tok we're talking about that trying to manipulate people.

[34:37]  So I think a junior developer has to be really savvy about how much of the dark side am I going to court because every time we use an AI we're supporting them, right? I'm paying for GPT Pro. I'm paying for Windsurf. So I've got I'm paying a bunch of different AI companies to use their tools that's given them the fuel to do more stuff

[34:55]  do more

[34:56]  how do we govern them right and I truly believe Ephrain that we can do this only by societal shift by moving to alternate models than capitalism then pure capitalism and that's why what we're doing with just like family home care is so exciting to me because we're successful and we're doing it with integrity and that to me is the formula for success because it's a moral success as well as a financial success and we are still having an impact on people. So I would encourage any juniors out there that are listening to this to think about I know you want to get ahead and I know you want to get your foot in the door and you want to move into this industry but always hold on to your values and how you get there is as important as where you end up. This is good. This is good stuff, man. I mean, conversation. Yeah, mic drop for sure. I love the conversation that we having. Um, as where can people find that? We haven't really tapped into um the organization and where people can find it. What is the website? Are you guys on social media? Where can they find more of a Toming conversations cuz people love what you got to say and I'm pretty sure someone wants to get in your inbox to continue the conversation. If you could just share the socials with us.

[36:04]  Yeah, for sure. So, my LinkedIn is uh is LinkedIn.com. D O T O M. Uh I think I should probably double check that and we can confirm that after the call. Um and uh the company, the home care company that I'm a CTO of is called just like family. Currently that website is just likefamily.ca if you're in Canada. And we will have a different name when we launch in the US and I'll let you know when that when that happens, but for legal reasons, we'll need a different name there. um and uh to definitely check us out and follow us along. When we launch this um this tool that we're going to help, then I'll, you know, I'll reach out to you and let you know what that address is because I think it's going to help a lot of people. It's going to be free, so why not send that out to to folks?

[36:49]  Absolutely.

[36:50]  Because we all have aging parents that are going to need this stuff. So,

[36:54]  100%. Well, listen, man. You wanted to talk about capitalism. So, my blind question to you is if capitalism had a version update tomorrow, what would you actually name it? What would I name it? Well, it depends on what the version update is, but if the version update was a a shift to the left, uh I'd probably I'd probably name it socialism, you know. No, but I I think I'd call it impact investing, you know. I think we're hearing these kinds of terms or social investing. Um because yeah, I think social investing is the way to go, right?

[37:33]  Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. Well, listen, man. Tom, you said you had a blind question that was just stirring up there. What is that blind question for the next lead we have here on the Heart and Hustle?

[37:41]  Yeah. I I mean, I think I articulated a little earlier and it's going to be how do you hold on to your moral compass as you strive to have the impact that you're trying to have out there in the world, right? How are you going to make sure that you get that how you get there is as important to you as as where you end up?

[37:58]  Oh yeah. Well, Tom, I appreciate the conversation, man. I hope that you continue to um build, man. Never give up on that free model. I think it's great that you're building something that is free that people can utilize. Uh we talk about the the you know, baby boomers. It's we're going to see if I'm not mistaken, it was like more 65 year olds, uh 65 year olds than we have 18 year old and less or something like that like in the next 5 years. Absolutely. Um so pretty huge when you talk about numbers the homeare industry that is booming speaking to a lot of leaders and technology like that definitely be the game changer to what it actually looks like for even us when we actually have to end up in you know these home carees cuz we're going to be there too man this is part of life so Tom it's had totally been a pleasure man we thank you so much for sharing the insight on what even AI so many people are scared of you know fear of AI you gave us both sides of it you know and hope that people can start to utilize it more be a bit more careful on it as well because that's what we have to do but um if you have Any more AI questions? Tom is your guy. Coden. Yeah, Tom is your guy. Okay. He got the minion bots on deck for you guys. This has been E Freay with the Hearted Hustle Podcast. We got our leader of time in the building. We'll catch you guys on the next episode. Talk to you later. Bye.