CO-HOST | Make Money by Rethinking College, Careers, and the Skilled Trades

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowicz, I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter

and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how

artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on big technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it,

asking where this is all going to come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your

colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Until your retirement age, because you know, who wants to do that? You want to make money now,

live life now, and then do it without sacrificing your retirement, which we'll be talking about

mostly here on the show. On this episode, this is a co-host I've showed my producer Eric,

who's in studio. What's up, man? Hey, what's going on, Travis? It's good to be here today.

It's nice and sunny here in the Las Vegas area. It actually is beautiful. I will say today

has been awesome. Today was the first time in a little while that I sat outside and it wasn't

just because I was smoking a cigar. I just literally went outside with my computer and worked,

and it was so nice. And I know those days are fleeting. I know. I was going to say it's been an

amazing, like we had a very, very light winter. Usually gets pretty cold here, but like February was

beautiful. I was in a t-shirt every day. Literally. Yeah. I had to start wearing shorts when I went

for walks because it was like, I'm getting way too sweaty out here. That's that honestly sucked

because I would I always miscalculated what I needed. Totally. So I would leave and I'd be like,

like I would go like an online walk and I'd be wearing sweats. And then you get like the first

little bit and then the sun creeps over. What are we? A couple of boomers sitting on the porch right

now? Let's get into the episode. So the job market is like a raging river right now. It is very

treacherous and difficult. But how do you get through the treacherous waters? You have to row,

row, row your boat. And that brings us to this clip from micro,

talking about the number that scares him the most. What do you think that number is? I don't know.

It's a wide open question. What number scares Mike Rowe the most? What number scares Mike Rowe the most?

All right. Play a clip. This number terrifies Mike Rowe. Okay. Mike Rowe is scared. I'm doing

the clip. Yeah. Here's the clickbait. Here's the clickbait title. Mike Rowe said, what? Yeah.

What did Mike Rowe say? Is the number that scares him the most? All right. Here we go. The number that

scares Mike Rowe. Just press play the most. You want to hear some really horrible math? The number

that scares me more than 1.7 trillion in student loans is five. Every year for every five tradesman

who retire to replace them. Now that's been gone on for over a decade. And when you start to

just extrapolate that out, what you realize real fast is this is not just a conversation about

companies who are struggling to recruit talent or kids who are struggling to find a path to prosperity.

This is a conversation about how long clay Travis and Bucks X and want to wait for a plumber when

they need one or an electrician. Every single person listening to this has skin in the game

because every one of your audience members shares my addiction to smooth roads and affordable

electricity and indoor plumbing and a long list of other stuff that we've been taking for granite

long before dirty jobs went on the air. You want to hear first of all, who has a better podcasting

voice than Mike Rowe? You want to hear some really horrible math? The number that scares me more.

You. You think so? No. I don't think so. Versus Mike Rowe. Nobody versus Mike Rowe means that.

Yeah, here's yeah. So what's your what's your take on that one? I mean that speaks to a lot of

the stuff that we talk about on this show. We try to highlight more people. That's why I just

brought this up to you. No way. You're so insightful. Yeah, it's it's it's not only a matter of

what Mike is talking about, which are the lagging effects of what this means for the future,

like infrastructure, better roads, you know, indoor plumbing, things like that. But it's also speak

it also speaks to avoid in the market where there will likely be a lot of people who are going to

get paid a lot of money, which is what we talk about on this show. So it like there's going like

there was a huge trend away from blue collar work because it was sort of looked down on for

really long time. Yeah, go to college, get a bachelor so you don't have to go do manual labor

or something like that. But now it's like those are the people who are the prized possessions of

the economy are people who can work with their hands and fix things and build things because there's

fewer and fewer people who are willing to do that work. My brother-in-law gets so mad because

so one of my brother-in-laws is an accountant. Okay. Very smart. One of my brother-in-laws is very

dumb. Blue collar. Just kidding. So one of my brother-in-law that's a clip. One of my brother-in-laws is

an accountant. One of my brother-in-laws is an electrician. Okay, you got that. Yeah. And so when

me and the accountant fella are there with him, we always joke and we go, man, I would kill

to be able to have a job right off to use my head, you know. And he's like, guys, it's really

complicated. You don't understand like I have to do I have to do all these calculations and we're

and so we start whenever he starts talking about how hard blue collar work is, we just go,

and we just make that noise until it overpowers him completely because it's just two people going,

do do do do. You know, like a hoot. Yeah, it is a hoot. And then he gets mad. Guys,

you don't understand it. It's really hard work. And we're like, yeah, man, I wish I didn't have

to just sit be on a desk all day and just actually crunch the numbers. You know, I got to get out

there and go, do do do do. So he doesn't like that. But I will say if you ever have micro on the

show, I'm going to be in the background. Do do do. You know what's funny though? No. Is that

micro's like the dirty jobs guy? Yeah. But he spends all his time behind a desk neatly manicured

nails and nice come over talking about being a content greater. That is true. He's a hypocrite.

Can you say that? Can you say that for a clip? No. Micro is one of the goats to me. Like I would

let he's he's probably honestly, he's probably like top five, top 10 for sure of like gets to get

on my show. Top five guests that I would really like. You know, it would be funny. If you if you

invited him to the show, like, like, hey, meet me for recording. And then when he gets there,

he'll like, hand him a plunger. But I thank so much. I backed up. And then like when you don't

with that, that's the old thing. Just I just started to work around the house. I think that'd be

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It's another for him. Here's another here's another video clip. I couldn't remember that word of

micro talking about something that you just mentioned. So let's play it. Let's do it. This is micro

in a clip talking about something. This clip from micro. I think it's very fashionable right now

to unpack and distance ourselves from things that feel fundamental and traditional. And part of what

I try and do with my foundation is push back against that and make a more persuasive case for

nine and a half million good jobs that are sitting there. Why was that nine and a half a million?

It's for nine and a half million good jobs that are sitting there wide open offering wonderful

opportunities to anybody would have. We grew up similar but different. We didn't have any means.

We grew up the same but not the same. Who is this guy? Well said guy. This guy's channel is

called the dad edge. Okay. I don't know who that is. His channel is called the dad edge. Yeah,

you can keep saying it. I don't know what that means. But if you're a you know what I'll let you

guys make your own jokes. Here we go. Let's go ahead and keep. Okay. Everybody would have. We grew

up similar but different. We didn't have it. Hold on a second. You mean to tell me you had shared

experience but a unique experience. You mean to tell me that you did the same thing but not the same.

You mean to tell me you walked the same path but took a different direction. You mean to tell me

you had the same job but a different career track. You mean to tell me you have the same philosophy

but a unique POV. You mean to tell me that you guys are listening. This is what I deal with on a daily

basis. Can we talk? Can you admit that's an ass of nine thing? This is a pretty good. It's a pretty

wild thing. We grew up same but different. We grew up similar but different. We had the same

thing. I mean I felt a stress of it but I didn't remember but different. We didn't have any

means grown up. I mean I felt a stress of it but I didn't really feel like I was missing out on

a ton but with this day and age what I've noticed. I felt the stress of it but didn't feel like I

was missing. Like what was this guy doing? The yin and yang of this man. Along with my boys and

the temptations that they have, the things that are at their fingertip, their cell phone,

the window to the world, right? It's the epitome of non-delayed gratification you can have.

That you're the epitome of adding nothing to the clock so it's not much being said here. Mike

was like there's nine point five million jobs wide open. Yeah these phones. These phones kids have

I mean I grew up. Maybe he was getting some. I mean I kind of grew up with phone.

I mean I didn't have a phone but it's like I did. Mike, Mike's in there like, man this podcasting

is sure a dirty job isn't it Travis? But anyway so there's all these opportunities available.

There's a lot of stuff. Nine and a half million jobs. Why do you think they're still? I mean here's

the thing that blows my mind. Is in that first clip he says like there's 1.7 trillion in student

loan debt and people are still jobless. Well still going to college to figure out what they want

to do. And here I want to say this on the record immediately after saying that. I've thought recently

about pursuing some college again until you say stop don't do that. I've thought about it myself.

But I've thought about it just because like the more that I do the things I do I'm like I'd

love to learn to like actually research and like have some credentials and all that sort of stuff.

It'll be helpful for your career. Yeah but the biggest issue I have with people going to college

is like the amount of kids that are sent to college to figure out what they want to do.

Correct. That to me is crazy because the amount like even if you gave well think about you

know somebody that just recently started like a clothing line right. I don't know if we can say

their name. No. Is that fine? No. That's not yeah. So it's me because I don't know the context of

what we're about to talk about so I'd rather leave them out of it until I know. I want you to say

why it's a big mistake. No but I'm saying imagine imagine that person their parent like because

they're like 1819 so didn't go to college. Correct. Right. So I'm saying imagine taking some like

night classes or something like that. So imagine the parents say we've got $30,000 which is

cheap for college. We have $30,000 for your college fund. Imagine if the parents said let's take

that $30,000 to run ads for your clothing business or or some other investment into their work

versus $30,000 for you to go like start a Shopify store on the side while you're attending like math

classes at university to figure out what do I actually want to do. Yeah and I mean like to get into

debt to figure out what you may or do not want to do is is pretty wild especially because it's

crazy debt. Yeah. It's the only debt that an 18-year-old can even get and to be clear you can't even

get a $500 limit credit card when you're 18 but then some person's gonna be like oh yeah totally

sign here here's $150,000 that you owe us. And to be clear I wouldn't have brought up a person

that you know very well to rag on them. Yeah. So I just be clear. I don't know where this is going.

What about food? I don't know. Yeah. You know your dear friend. What a what a fool they are.

Yeah it's it's it's it's just becoming it makes less and less sense. Yeah. Like even in the last

decade especially with with information becoming ubiquitous it is it's becoming just a more wild

decision to be like oh I'm gonna go and not only like for most people in most universities the

education will not be as good as it would have been if you interned somewhere or if you use some

of that a fraction of that money to hire a coach who's built a clothing line who can teach you

the mistakes that they made that you can learn from like the education will not be as good. It will

take much longer and it will cost way more money. There's just so few fields anymore that to

me require you to have to go through that traditional path. Right. Well it doesn't make sense for

those people. My my brother-in-law like went and got his apprenticeship or whatever for a company.

So like he was getting paid to learn exactly and then learn while you learn things. Yeah.

And then literally like a year in you know and he learned commercial or he learned one of the two

commercial or residential and then joined a company and they're like hey we do the opposite.

We can we bring you in and you can show us how to do that and it's like on the track now at like

19 it's very realistic he's get like he's gonna stay with that company and he's gonna be running

their residential division. It's like he could be in a second year of college and 60 grand.

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required. And that at this point to learn something that's going to be obsolete by the time

you graduate. Right. Well and to give the counterpoint like I had a friend who went to college

for a graphic design. Yeah. And basically she was saying like I'm like I think she had like 40

grand in debt still or whatever and she's like and I've been out of college for years and was like

all the programs I learned were obsolete like by the time I graduated. Yeah. And so it's like

it's like something that I can go to Canva right and use an AI tool. Yeah. Throw in a few prompts

and get some pretty good graphics out of it. Right. You know like I'm not going to recommend that

but I know you know yeah well it's only going to get back. You like the department of war having

your data. I mean go to a chat GPT and I'm saying. But but my point is like it's only going to

get better. Yeah sure. Canva is only going to get better. So there's so many skills of people like

by the time you're done you know even medical school or like dental school like we're talking to

to Brady Smith on the show who's who's a dentist and he was talking about this robotic arm that's

doing this insanely complex dental implant surgery now and and and he asked me on on the show he was

like would you trust that and I was like well no not now you know I'm not going to be the guinea pig

with some robotic arm imagine me the first person but ever robotic well one of his friends who's

like a very well esteemed dentist who's kind of well known for doing this type of surgery

volunteer to have that like do surgeon him and it was totally fine but my point is it's like we're

at the very beginning stages of that so the time that it takes to become a dentist or the time that

it takes to become a doctor you know what I mean like if you start like a kid who's 14 right now

who's like I want to be a surgeon you know it's like well once you graduate high school then you're

going to go to college you got to get into a good college so dedicate a lot of work to get into a

good college then you get into that good college and you go through four years there and then you have

medical school and then you have residency and like we're talking from a for a 14 year old we're

talking about what 16 years before they're going to be a practicing surgeon you know what I mean

like in that time period from now to 16 years in the future a lot of again there's probably going

to be a robotic arm that can do the surgery in a better more complete way by the time that you

are capable of doing that and now you're going to be $350,000 in debt by the time you're starting to

earn and your ability to earn is going to be limited by the fact that there's a machine that can

do it that is going to be more accurate than any human you know what I mean since even those types

or or or being an attorney or something like that it's like and I we talked about this a little

bit before and you have people in the comments that are like yeah but an attorney is still required

for and look I'm not saying that lawyers are going to be completely replaced by AI but what I am

saying is that a significant portion of the jobs available in that world will definitely be

automated replaced by AI you know like like the traditional passwords like you you're in law

school and you're a paralegal at a law firm so you can hopefully get a position as a lawyer once

you graduate things like that like that work is not only is not only like AI is not only capable

of doing that it's better like if if if an if an AI tool has the ability to research all of the

potential available data and provide information to an attorney who's making a case that job is

gone you know what I'm saying like that it's going to be much like remarkably better at doing

that job rather than having a paralegal stay up you know working 22 hour days pouring through

literal boxes of paper research and data to find answers or you can just like throw it into an AI

thing and then the next morning you wake up and it gives you all the information that a team of

paralegals would give you over the course of two weeks of digging through you know I mean like

that stuff is going to be gone and there's still going to be people who are are going to have

roles in that world who have have to have the level of competence to be able to decide and make

decisions and things like that it's just that the job the jobs are going to shrink you know I mean

it's not a market that's going to be growing in terms of available positions whereas you look at

these trades jobs they are by definition growing every single year with available positions

and will and because of again it comes back to simple supply and demand economics which is that

it's not just supply and demand in terms of the marketplace it's the the job market works the same

way as the products and services market it's if there are a ton of people who have this skill

then by definition it is less valuable to a company and therefore will be paid out of lower rate

whereas you have another position that is they they're begging people to fill and be competent in

that will by definition require employers to offer more money to fill that position

and a lot of these trades jobs are very very overlooked by the younger generation

and I'm including myself in that category like Millennials Gen Z like they're very very overlooked

when in reality they actually probably are providing a much more stable potential career path

than a lot of the jobs that have been coveted for the past two decades so yeah they're they're

if you're if you're a young person listen to this you should be willing to question

the status quo again and ask yourself like am I pursuing this you know sort of desk job type career

because I truly am passionate about this thing and I want to do it or because I view that as being

the thing that is gonna give me economic prosperity in the future because the reality of the situation

is is that in a decade from now those two things are gonna be wildly different so you have to take

into account all of the other external factors before you make these decisions especially when

you're making a decision to to burden yourself with six figures in debt that you're gonna have to

pay off throughout the remainder of your life when the vast majority of people you know even if they

even if they had to have a degree to get hired they're not even using the thing that they

got their degree in you know what I mean which is why a lot of companies are are even even tech

companies which have historically been the people to recruit solely out of Stanford you know I mean

even these companies are like yeah we don't even require a college degree anymore it's like okay

well if that's the case that's already happening then what are what are the odds that that's

gonna be the case when you graduate in four years from now if you're starting college or eight

years from now if you're just starting high school so it's take all of these things into account

because it's going to directly affect your ability to earn and and you know that type of debt is

really really crappy debt to have it's like having a mortgage payment as soon as you graduate

college which will prevent you from getting an actual mortgage payment because you need all the

money that you can get to buy house right now you know what I mean so and it might be a little bit

of a different scenario depending on the situation right that's why like all the advice we go on the

show is always like look there's a new wants to approach to all of this and you have to decide

what's best for you because in some scenarios it might be like oh well if you got into a really great

school and you got a full ride scholarship and you don't have to go into debt to get it and you can

put yourself in a position to go meet a bunch of other kids who are who are in a different

socio economic class than the one that you come from or are familiar with then the the relationships

and the networking and the exposure like those things may be worth the college experience for you

but if it's one of those things where it's like I have no idea what I want to do and I'm gonna go

get in debt to go to college because that's what I feel like is the next step for me in life or

I think there's a lot of people in this category actually it feels safer to go to college

because the only thing you know how to do is school you know I'm saying like when you're 17 18

that's the only thing you've ever done that's the only thing you have any experience in is school

so it's like it feels safe that that I'm convinced that's why a lot of people just continue going to

school there's like oh well I guess I'll go back get a master's I guess I'll study for my PhD

I guess I'll study for my second PhD and then they end up being a professor because like they never

actually decided what they wanted to do they were just like it feels more comfortable it feels safer

to me I thrive in this environment I was always rewarded for getting good grades so I'm just

gonna stay in this this world because anything outside of that seems unsafe uncertain and I don't

know whether or not I'll be able to make it so they just like oh well you know that's why the

it's just a little bit of debt you know who cares because you weren't good at school I wasn't good at

I was pretty good at school I keep doing this by the time I got to college though I did not

I did not care them like after freshman year I was like this feels like I'm on a treadmill right

now like none of this actually really matters for what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life so

yeah I started I started not caring as much do you Mike just fall apart on you oh

yes okay um but yeah I I stopped I stopped really caring probably around especially like

junior year senior year I was like all right what are we done can we can we can we kind of

call it quits here it's funny you say that because the audience right now just said wait when

are we done when is this episode over right now close us out that's it for this episode of the

show remember money only solves your money problems but it's easy to solve the rest of the

problems of money in the bank so let's start there here in the Travis makes money podcast don't

don't undervalue the trades that might be where the majority of the money is made in the next

decade that's it for this episode of the show catch you in the next one booze