Most small businesses do not have pension plans or easy ways to extract their business' value.  To that end sometimes small businesses think they should buy their building to reduce their costs or at least having their payments to back to them.  There are pitfalls to this approach and anyone considering doing it should really think it hard and carefully.   Mark and Jeff discuss and provide context on what business owners should consider when looking at buying real estate.

As part of our series on Neurodivergent (or suspected) celebrities, this episode dives into the enigma that was Stanley Kubrick the auteur film maker known for feature films such as the Shining, 2001: A Space Odessey, Eyes Wide Shut to name a few.  A man obsessed with detail, his meticulous attention to all aspects of a film would often mean they would take a long time to come to fruition.  He would often take an extraordinary number of takes and he would spend an inordinate amount of time sourcing historically accurate props and practical lighting effects.

In the past week and a half there has been much turmoil at OpenAI, the company that has developed and launched ChatGTP (as well as Dall-E). Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI was fired on Friday Nov 17, 2023, subsequently tried to come back only to have the board decide not to hire him, hired by Microsoft and then rehired back on the following Tuesday.  It is big tech news because ChatGPT has taken the tech world by storm and is valued somewhere in the region of $80 Billion US.  Mark and Jeff do a deeper dive into the background of Sam Altman and discovered some surprising facts about him.

Mark and Jeff do a deep dive into the Artist known as Banksy.  Where he came from what he did and what seems to drive him.  Banksy is a complicated artist whose identity is not known (although it was recently revealed!).  His work is all political with lots of pranks.  He did a documentary in 2011 that was nominated for an academy award.  He has also done a huge amount of political commentary both by his images, what they show and where they are placed.  He is a street artist that still does illegal works (sometimes), in the streets.

Elon Musk is a complicated person.  Some people idolize him, others think he is a villain.  He has attributes of both and although he gets some visionary things accomplished because he is relentless, he would be a very difficult person to work for.  It is easy to understand how some of the things he had done can be interpreted more than one way.  Mark and Jeff discuss some of his accomplishments as well as some of the problems he has caused.

Mark was interested in a biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson as a result of a podcast from Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher (Pivot).  He has been reading the book and feels the criticism by Kara Swisher on the writer is poorly founded (actually it feels like she was reading some other book).  Her critique is that Walter Isaacson never states if he liked Elon, but that seems to have completely missed the way the book is structured.  Mark also feels that Kara fundamentally doesn't understand Elon's behaviour.  What is clear is that Elon is Neurodiverse and it really explains a lot of his behaviour.  In this episode we dive deep into this topic.

As people age, at some point in time you need to deal with either an aging relative or your own inevitable demise.  Many people try to avoid thinking about it until too late.  In this episode, after we talk about some space stuff, we discuss common issues as people age as well as how to plan for the future.  It is a difficult issue that sometimes only gets discussed or resolved when a medical crisis occurs.  Even if you know better, sometimes people avoid the work to plan for their own retirement and long term care. We also talked about Ganymede and Artemis as well as the problems with the Star Wars universe.

This is a correction on the podcast file that was uploaded on Oct 24, 2023 which seems to have had the previous episode incorrectly uploaded.  Thanks to a listener for noting the error.  Enjoy

Streaming has fundamentally changed how we experience music as well as the economic landscape.  A music genre that was once dominant in the 70's and 80's now is  a relatively uncommon sight on the charts.  The last #1 Rock song on the charts was Nickelback in 2001.  Now, an Italian rock band with a Danish name Maneskin is tearing up the charts (still not number 1 though).  They are big in Europe and won the Eurovision competition a few years ago but now to stay relevant they are pushing to be heard in the US.

Just over a week ago, there was a vicious attack by Hamas on Israel that has horrified the world.  This terrorist act has led to a significant conflict re-igniting again in the middle East (it has basically been there for a long time but it flared up again).  Mark and Jeff discuss some of the issues and why both sides are in untenable positions and how everyone loses in this conflict.  This is a rapidly changing issue and was recorded on Wednesday October 11, 2023, as a consequence some conditions may have changed since the recording.  As usual Mark and Jeff sample some coffee, tell a few dad jokes, talk about what they learned this week as well as what media they are consuming.  Check out our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Connect2podcast

In this episode, Mark and Jeff discuss what music they listen to, how to discover new music as well as old formats and what they used to do.  They also sample some coffee, tell some dad jokes, discuss what they learned this week and what media they are consuming.  Check out the podcast's facebook page for links to referenced topics at https://www.facebook.com/Connect2podcast