Podcast - January 30, 2024
???? New Episode: Navigating 2024’s Hottest Trends with Josh Sheluk and Matthew Kempton ???? Get ready for an eye-opening journey into 2024’s most impactful trends on the Barenaked Money Podcast. Josh and Matthew dissect everything from the explosion of Canadian entrepreneurship to the intriguing dynamics of AI in our energy usage. Discover what it means to live past 100, the truth behind fertility trends, and the evolving realms of private equity and streaming services. Plus, they unveil the reality of content creation as a career and the often-overlooked emotional aspects of retirement planning. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to stay ahead of the curve. Tune in and join the conversation!
The transcript is automatically generated
Announcer (00:00):
You are about to get lucky with the Barenaked Money Podcast, the show that gives you the naked truth about personal finance with your hosts, Josh Sheluk and Colin White, portfolio managers with Verecan Capital Management Inc.
Josh Sheluk (00:14):
Alright, Josh Sheluk and Matt Kempton here with your next episode of Barenaked Money. We’ve given Colin the day off and I think Matt’s going to be a much more attractive and much better version of Colin.
Matthew Kempton (00:28):
I won’t say anything there. Big shoes to fill. I’ll just say that
Josh Sheluk (00:32):
We both know I carry this podcast most of the time. Alright, with that said, we’re looking forward to having Matt on the pod today and Matt is a valued member of the Raan team now joined us how long ago, Matt? It’s been about four months now.
Matthew Kempton (00:50):
No, no, two and a half, but two of us.
Josh Sheluk (00:53):
Who’s counting time flies. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, today we have an article from LinkedIn that we’ve dug up that has 34 trends to watch out for in 2024. And this is from a variety of experts responding through the LinkedIn platform. So we came across this article and thought, Hey, there’s some interesting, interesting fodder here, interesting food for thought. So let’s pick out some of the pieces, the thoughts that we think are most interesting and most worthy a comment from this article. And so Matt and I have both gone away and picked several of these that we thought to be fascinating or at least worthy of discussion. So what do you have first, Matt?
Matthew Kempton (01:35):
Well, I’ve got again, a few here that we picked out. And like you say, they put together a good list here and I thought we’d start with the first item actually on the list. The big topics for 2024, a Canadian entrepreneurial renaissance is on its way. Maybe I’ll start with my thoughts on this one and I guess my first thought on this one is I hope so. I really hope so. This is an extremely important piece to economic growth is having a strong entrepreneurial base and commitment to being an entrepreneur. And that feeling of wanting to start a business and taking that risk is so important to our economy here in Canada. And it’s been lacking for a period here and we’ve started to fall behind. And actually in the article they cite a pretty concerning stat. There are 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs in Canada than compared to 20 years ago, despite a rising population here in Canada.
(02:32):
So that’s concerning now. I hope we’ll start to see some change there. Now, will it all happen in 2024? I doubt that, but I hope the beginnings of it wilt because we certainly could use more of it and as often happens, sometimes points of stress in the economy are those periods where people either from a position of being laid off or they just sort of reassess things and say, it’s time for me to take my experience and go out on my own here. So maybe that’ll start to fuel some, but maybe Josh, I’ll turn it over to you just for some of your thoughts on this.
Josh Sheluk (03:08):
Yeah. Well my first thought, and I’ll ask you the question, how much do you think public policy has played into this? I’ll call it a little bit dramatically the demise of the entrepreneur here in Canada over the last couple of decades.
Matthew Kempton (03:26):
I think pretty significantly. I mean even going back to recent federal elections, the competitiveness of Canada or the idea of being an entrepreneur was not discussed at all. And despite it, my mind being such an important topic, and so we’re not positioned or we haven’t been positioned in a great way to encourage entrepreneurship. Maybe that’s changing with some of the federal programs that are around startups around clean energy and this sort of thing that are being created. So maybe there’s some incentive that’s being put in place, but it’s one thing to have incentive, but we might lack that culture of risk, that culture, that failure is okay that they have in the us. So I don’t know if that starts at the policy level, it starts at the school level or it starts at the community, the household level. But there are, there’s some fundamental differences between us and let’s say a more entrepreneurial nation like the US that we don’t necessarily need to be like our cousins to the south in all ways, but this is a way that they embrace entrepreneurship in a way that we don’t.
Josh Sheluk (04:27):
Yeah, it’s interesting. Someone told me one time something similar to you said, this is an American just said on the entrepreneurial side, we’ll fail, we’ll move on and start something new. And there’s really no stigma associated with that. So it is maybe a deep seated cultural thing. I’ve been thinking about the policy changes, especially on the tax side that have come in place in Canada over the last 10 or so years, and it seems to be a regular and consistent, I don’t know, again, attack is maybe a little bit dramatic, but they’re definitely looking at entrepreneurs and people running small businesses and those that they would call maybe the high income earners and looking to them to pay more taxes. And I won’t say more than their fair share, everybody’s got their different interpretation of what fair is, but certainly there’s split income rules that have changed over the last 10 or so years and then more recently rules with the alternative minimum tax that can kind of sort it in a veiled way, target the business owners pretty significantly perhaps. And then the higher tax rates. There seems to be a consistent disincentive from a financial perspective for those entrepreneurs to go out on their own. And unfortunately, fortunately or unfortunately, so many things in our world are economically driven. And when you have maybe an overhang, if we want to call it that, that’s hurting the economics of being an entrepreneur, that’s definitely got to factor in a little bit. I would think
Matthew Kempton (06:10):
You’re very right. I think that’s a big part of it. And of course when you have a family business, as many businesses are, especially here in Canada, when you hear at the dinner table that change in policy and that change in the approach of how we’re thinking about business owners, it might make it less encouraging for the next generation to say, well, I want to take part in that too in the life that you lived in, the business that you ran. Because it might be different for me if government’s going to put these approaches in versus how you experience it. So that alone, you’re right, policy can have a big impact.
Josh Sheluk (06:43):
Yeah. So moving on here, one of the items that I thought was interesting, and of course we had, when we were talking about trends for 2024, we had to have an AI one in here and there were several AI items on this list, but the one that I found most interesting was the headline here, powering the AI boom will become as important as regulating it. So the point here in the article was that the amount of energy consumption by these AI data centers is immense, and it had suggested that over 1% of the global energy consumption was actually by data centers, which is pretty significant. I think when I saw that number, I was pretty surprised by it, but it got me thinking not so much that I find this specific aspect super interesting, but when you think about the companies that are behind this AI push, some of the largest companies, the most successful companies, we’ll call them in the world ones with the deepest pockets, which I think we can say unequivocally, it got me thinking maybe this is the clean energy revolution that we need because invention is often out of necessity.
(07:57):
And if these companies are looking to power their AI and thinking, well, to power my ai, I need to have a cleaner, more sustainable source of energy, and then they start to deploy some of their hundreds of billions of dollars of capital towards this problem and some of their brilliant minds that they have, well maybe this is it. So do you think there’s any legs to that idea?
Matthew Kempton (08:21):
I mean I think there absolutely is. And I mean just recently heard Microsoft announced that they might be pursuing a nuclear strategy to help power their database, their ai. And so these companies have gotten so big and so it’s such a talent base behind them that maybe they alone can really help push and push some of this clean energy agenda just or for their power needs and their power needs that need to be sustainable. They need to be there for them and accessible at all times. And so they might have to just sort of take that into their own hands to an extent,
Josh Sheluk (08:56):
Almost like accidentally creating a clean energy revolution for the greater population for really a personal need. But I think that’s how the world works. A lot of the times, unfortunately, we’re probably not going to really endeavor in this pure clean energy path until it becomes economically sensible to do so. And driving down costs is how you’re going to do that. And hopefully some of these companies come up with something brilliant that’s solving a big problem for us.
Matthew Kempton (09:28):
Right. Hopefully some of these entrepreneurs will push the agenda up
Josh Sheluk (09:32):
Way to go.
Matthew Kempton (09:33):
So maybe next out of these big topics, one that looked pretty interesting, in fact it’s sort of a combination of two, but they’re certainly related and one of them being that living to age 100 will become a lot less rare and then tied into that, but we’ll take the focus off living long and into living well. So I think this has been an observable trend for a while. There are many people who have now reaching that mark of a hundred or beyond, my grandmother is one of them. But that there’s one thing to live long, but to live well is important for a lot of reasons. I mean this matters for entitlement policies, it matters for housing, it matters for financial planning for us. I mean, think about building a plan for a client. It makes a big difference if we’re projecting to age 85, 95 or 100. So these items are becoming more real and more something to focus on, but they have huge impacts to society as people begin to live longer.
Josh Sheluk (10:34):
So as you talk about the financial planning implications, what do you think we should do as advisors about this? Do you think it’s as simple as projecting to age a hundred and some of the financial planning that we do? Or is there something more specific or maybe more targeted that we can do to help?
Matthew Kempton (10:53):
I mean, I think first step is just through that risk management component to say you may or may not outlive your money and so can’t just because prior generations didn’t live to a hundred, we shouldn’t assume that they won’t. There’s a low probability of it, but we think about tail risks all the time, and that can become one of those. So it enters its way into our world that way just to say, we might now need to think about money lasting longer changing investment strategy potentially to help it get there, managing spending in a different way, tax in a different way, your ultimate estate in a different way. So it does creep in a lot of ways to longer living individuals. Were there any other thoughts you had on how we might become involved?
Josh Sheluk (11:37):
Well, one of the things that I often have conversations about with people, especially around retirement age is while I’m retired now, I think I should get a lot more conservative with my investment portfolio. And I think this filters into one of the conversations that I have a lot is your time horizon. If you’re 60 or 65 and you’ve just retired, your time horizon is not necessarily short for a portion of your investments. Yeah, probably because you might be drawing on it a little bit more in the near term, but your actual time horizon is still quite long at that point. And if you’re talking about an age a hundred, then your time horizon is still very long. So this mentality that, and part of this is maybe this old adage that you bond portion of your portfolio should be directly related to your age. That’s a mentality that’s existed for some time.
(12:38):
I think we need to start to break that a little bit and really unfortunately maybe take a little bit more of a growth focus with client’s portfolios as they’re entering their retirement years. That probably means they’re going to be subject to a little bit more volatility in their portfolios through their retirement years, but it’s maybe going to be necessary as people contemplate longer lives. The other thing that I think is a concern for a lot of clients that I talk to is long-term care expenses. So I might not be spending a whole lot of my retirement nest egg right now, but I’m worried about when I’m age 85 or age 90 that I’m going to be spending $10,000 a month on a long-term care facility. And that’s a real concern too. So there’s a lot of things that factor in here. I think in my experience speaking with people, the quality of life thing as well is huge. Most people don’t come in and say that I want to live to this. So-and-so age, they just want to live a healthy and fulfilling life for as many years as they have. And I don’t know how we deal with that. I think as you get to a greater number of people living to age a hundred, you’re going to have a greater number of people living in maybe unwell situations health-wise as well. It’s a bit of a moral and ethical and philosophical dilemma just as much as it is a financial one. I think
Matthew Kempton (14:06):
You’re very right. So we’ve got our piece of it we hope to be able to help with, but I so agree with your point there on just those rules of thumb, which we need to be cautious of anyway in investing. But the bond one around retirement, and that one is just one that feels really ingrained in people’s minds that you flip your portfolio to a more fixed income oriented one at that day of retirement almost seems to be the way the rule is structured. But like you say, your retirement period, retirement periods now are long and in many cases they might be longer than the period that saved your contribution period might ultimately be shorter than the peer that you draw down from. And so longevity risk might be your biggest risk versus volatility risk. And so those conversations are so important and they change with different investment environments. And so we are in one now where bonds certainly are more attractive. There is still the longstanding reality that equities outperform bonds. And when we think about that long period, we’re trying to make sure there’s funds available for an income available for, we need to think about risk in a different way
Josh Sheluk (15:15):
For sure. Yeah, and I think that’s a good way to look at it is maybe on the risk side of things like what are your risks? And you said longevity risk is greater than volatility risk, and I’d add inflation risk is greater than volatility risk at that point too. And both of those things, stocks, equities, are going to do a better job dealing with than bonds for sure.
Matthew Kempton (15:33):
That’s right.
Josh Sheluk (15:34):
Yeah. So as we pivot from death to birth here, one of the articles that I found interesting or the points that I found interesting was that fertility gimmicks will fade and nations will get more real about the population decline. So I don’t really think this is a 2024 story for me, it’s more of a longer term thing like decades into the future, but population decline is problematic. We’ve seen it be problematic for a country like Japan for many years now, and we’re potentially going to see it become problematic for a country like China who has a very rapidly aging population. And just coming back to economics, macroeconomics 1 0 1, the way that you grow the economy is through a few different ways, either technological development, more capital, so more computers and technology and things like that, or more people. And if we’re taking one of those factors out, the more people it’s going to be harder for us to grow economically. So just big picture and long-term, it is I would say a concerning trend. And I know even here in Canada, we’re thinking of ways to try to get that birth rate up because fortunately for us, we still have a huge populace of immigration every year, which is helping us grow our people base our workforce. But not every country has that benefit.
Matthew Kempton (17:01):
No, that’s right. And I mean for every person we take in, of course another country is losing that young person. So on a global net basis, there’s a real concern here. And will AI or productivity technology increases, will they be able to potentially offset this very clear trend and in birth rates declining? I guess we have to bet on hoping. So unless policy can really change on encouragement of more children, us to be having more children, there’s like I said, right down to economics 1 0 1, there’s a concern here.
Josh Sheluk (17:34):
Yeah, I like that you pulled AI into it. I wonder how many times we can reference AI on this 2024 trends podcast.
Matthew Kempton (17:42):
Take a shot every time.
Josh Sheluk (17:44):
Yeah, you got it.
Matthew Kempton (17:49):
So onto the next one here, the next one and a bit of a bold call maybe to say that 2024 will be the year that private equity gets reigned in. We started to see this, I guess define reign and started to see a slowing in certainly deals and in multiples in private equity. So it hasn’t been the shining star that it was for a very long period. It’s still attracting, fundraising still seems to be going reasonably well, and it’s still a big par portion of allocation is certainly institutional and pension type portfolios. But will, I guess, is it the case that it might show a bit more that the results that we’ve seen from private equity have been so benefited by a decline in interest rates and just adding debt onto businesses and that in itself making just sort of juicing returns in a sense where maybe they themselves haven’t improved the operations so much and they’ve benefited from a trend that isn’t really in place anymore. And so for those newer funds or maturing funds, do they exit in a way that they could have before? And do we continue to see those good results or is the asset class going to, is there going to be some more clarity into what’s really happening there? And overall the story won’t be as rosy. What are your thoughts on that?
Josh Sheluk (19:14):
Well, my question is hasn’t this already happened? Hasn’t private equity already been reigned in? I looked at some of the numbers just preparing for this. I had this question, but in 2022, the deal funding was an insignificant decline throughout much of the calendar year. And I looked back to a peak in the third quarter of 21, and there was about 300 billion of deal flow according to Ernst Young on that quarter. And that declined to about a hundred billion by the end of 2022 on the quarter. So that’s a third of the deal flow over the course of about 18 months. That to me is already rained in.
Matthew Kempton (19:54):
I think you’re right. So I think maybe that’s the first step. But they do have stats. I’ve seen dry powder remains pretty significant that sits on the sidelines. And where the real showing might be is in these funds that have some, they’re nearing their seven year period of investment and an exit is necessary, that’s when we really might get some clarity into, well, what valuation are you actually going to be able to sell that at, whether it’s in the public markets or to another private investor. And at that point we might see a real sort of revision lower of returns, because you’re right, deals have slowed. Maybe that’s step one, deals slow, they can’t find as many attractive type deals, they can’t use debt in the way that they could have once done. And then what’s the next step? What’s the next shoe to drop? And then where does that ultimately play out?
Josh Sheluk (20:41):
So explain that to me and our listeners. So you’re talking about a seven year window. So what exactly do you mean that I think you’re referring to that’s sort of the typical holding period for some of these investments and then people look to get their money back. Is that kind right?
Matthew Kempton (20:55):
Yeah. So when private equity typically steps in, they’ll do so with the mind that they’re going to sell this business. It’s not permanent capital, it’s generally we’re going to step in and prove operations, make some adjustments, create some efficiencies, and then hope to exit, maybe roll up a few businesses into one and then hope to find a buyer within seven year period or less. And that’s often what investors ask for from the start is we want our money returned in this point. And so for those assets that sit in those portfolios that have been with a five or six year tenure, it’s getting to the point where something needs to happen and who’s the buyer for those. Now we’ve seen some interesting things where some of these bigger private equity firms are creating additional funds that are buying from their first funds and are saying, now this is a permanent fund and we’re going to create a market. We’re going to create liquidity here. So some creative measures might happen, but broadly across the market, I think we’re going to see a trend of, I think it’s likely that we see a trend, maybe it’s interest rate dependent to an extent that deals will come out at lower multiples and maybe there’s some of the Lester falls off private equity for a period
Josh Sheluk (22:06):
Here. Yeah, that’s not a conflict of interest at all. Hey, just the new fund to buy from an old fund, that sounds like a Ponzi scheme.
Matthew Kempton (22:15):
Yeah, you’re very right. You want to prop up multiples, we’ll just sell to yourself.
Josh Sheluk (22:17):
Yeah, exactly.
Matthew Kempton (22:18):
They been, well,
Josh Sheluk (22:19):
Who’s getting screwed on that end? I don’t know, but probably the company’s going to work out fine. One of the investors on either end is getting screwed on that one, I would say.
Matthew Kempton (22:28):
Yeah, very true.
Josh Sheluk (22:30):
All right, so moving on here. I found this one interesting, the statement that will move away from what they call a growth at all costs economy. And I’m just going to push back on this one right away. I just don’t understand the article. I’m not sure that I buy this idea. So the principle of this statement was that we are going to start as a society, as a globe, as a country, start looking at things a little bit differently than just, Hey, we need economic growth, we need progress. You could maybe argue that that’s happening a little bit right now, but I will push back on the article with this. Have you ever heard of the quality of life approach in Canada, Matt?
Matthew Kempton (23:17):
No.
Josh Sheluk (23:18):
Okay. So this article says that like Canada and other countries like New Zealand, there will start to be a push for more of a quality of life or balanced approach to progress. We’ll call it progress. I’ve never heard of this. I’m a Canadian. You’re a Canadian, we’re pretty plugged in. We’ve never heard of this comment or this statement. This report was apparently published two and a half years ago. So if we live in Canada, we’ve never heard of this quality of life approach here. How are other countries going to really push for an adoption of this type of mentality? I just don’t get it. I don’t see it. I will continue to believe that we’re going to be economically driven, and maybe this is my bias as somebody in finance, but I’ll continue to believe that we’re going to be economically driven because that’s to me, what provides the greatest incentive for people. I don’t see people just saying, you know what? Let’s throw away some money. We will not care about that as much. I just want to save the environment for a little while, not in aggregate. Anyway,
Matthew Kempton (24:23):
I mean, I think you’re very right. And maybe going back to economics 1 0 1, I think that if the standard of living improves across the nation and that GDP per capita steps up, and if the middle class is healthy, then I think that over time has proven that, hey, the wellbeing of the nation is improving. And so I think that’s the way we’ve thought about it for a very long time. And this seems to say, Hey, there’s some new metrics that we should be bringing in. But I’m old school in a sense. I think those old ones are pretty good.
Josh Sheluk (24:52):
Yeah. So you brought this one to the table, expect an retirement wave in 2024. What do you see from this article and what interested you the most?
Matthew Kempton (25:04):
Well, part of what’s I think so interesting about this one is it speaks to a bit to our role, but when we do retirement planning for clients, I mean step one, it’s largely financial. It’s just to say, have you saved enough or will you have saved enough to retire at this time to then live the lifestyle you hope to live, whatever those expenses might bring, and then to leave in a state that you hope to. And if that’s, I think step one there and that’s the financial piece of it, but retirement is not just a financial decision, it’s an emotional decision. And for some, maybe more than others, for some their job is their identity. And that’s maybe true on a sort of spectrum for some for all. And just the lifestyle change that occurs to your social circle, to all of these areas. When you make that decision to retire, I find we often become almost more of retirement coaches with clients.
(26:03):
They have to sort of move beyond, okay, financially you can retire, but what will that look like for you to live well and for you enjoy it? And a lot of people, purpose is a big part to that as well. And I think without those discussions, some might just sort of pull the trigger and say we’re going to retire and then find themselves in retirement and maybe a bit lost. So I think that is there’s an unretire wave that might occur just for even in a part-time basis for that seeking of purpose, but also a recognition that things have gotten more expensive and there might occur as well for purely financial reasons, if financially planning wasn’t put in place on the forefront on the front end, or if circumstances just change in such a way that they might need to come back to work. So I think this might be something we start to see more of and over the next little while is some we’re stepping back into the workforce maybe only on a part-time basis just for the enjoyment of it. But I think we will start to see more of this.
Josh Sheluk (27:05):
I read through the article and one of the comments there that caught my eye was saying that the majority of baby boomers expect to work until they physically can’t. And I said, come on, the majority of baby boomers are going to work until they’re basically falling down on the job. Literally. And I went to the link, the survey that they had or a study that they had supposedly done, and I didn’t find any reputable information from this that actually suggested that was the truth. But I don’t know, maybe I’m sure that there are some people out there that are struggling a bit financially in retirement. There’s almost no doubt about that, especially with, as you said, inflation where it is. But I think to your first point, this may be as much of a emotional and purpose and lifestyle decision as it is a financial one for people.
Matthew Kempton (27:56):
I think that’s the case. So touching on a couple more that we haven’t yet, and this is just maybe a bit of a fun one. I’ll pick this one up here just because it’s just been fascinating to watch the changing in this space expect a reckoning among streaming sites. I think we’ve all either subscribing to one or many of these platforms, whether it’s Netflix Crave or multiple of them. And if you want to find one program or one show you like, it’s over here and then another might be over here. And if you trying to stream sports, well, you have to go over here and if you want to watch this specific game, it’s over here. And it was, I can’t remember exactly which comedian it was, but there was one that pointed it out very well to say, we’ve all canceled this thing that we got so sick of in cable, and then we’ve moved over to this area that’s now transitioning to his place. And I think the next step is they’re going to bundle that all together and we’re going to be right back to where we were. And it feels like that It’s so true.
(28:55):
We’re going full circle here. It’s just incredible. And all these companies are spending so much money on this on content because its content is king, but it’s becoming hard as a user to say, well, how can only have so many of these subscriptions? Where am I subscribing to? What am I canceling? And then signing up over here because I want to just watch this specific show. It’s becoming pretty hard to navigate and to use.
Josh Sheluk (29:21):
Yeah, and that’s no doubt. It seems like exactly what this guy said, this comedian said, we’re going to end up kind of in the same spot that we once were. But how many streaming services do you have in your house?
Matthew Kempton (29:34):
Well, I have two and then one that I may or may not have a password to,
Josh Sheluk (29:40):
Basically the same on our end, but it seems like things are consolidating in the industry because again, to your point, there’s only so many that you can actually have access to and pay for. And it gets kind of frustrating when, like you said, there’s one specific show that you want to watch that’s on some streaming service that you don’t have. But I’ve been hearing recently, so it seemed like initially all these, the content creation companies said, we’re going to go start our own streaming service and we’re going to have a separate subscription for this. And now it’s kind of reversing where Netflix has proven to be sort of the dominant service. I’ve heard recently that both HBO and Disney have reneged on everything being on their own platform entirely and are going to put some of their content back onto to Netflix as well going forward. So maybe just a continued consolidation towards what we had on cable again.
Matthew Kempton (30:49):
Yeah, everything goes full circle.
Josh Sheluk (30:50):
Yeah, the sad thing is the ads, right? That’s the thing that I really don’t want to have back is commercials on my streaming. So I guess you could pay for the premium services or whatever that don’t have them, but if we go back again, totally full circle, and then it’s just like an on-demand television again on-demand cable, then that’ll be kind of a frustrating circle to go in. I’d say,
Matthew Kempton (31:15):
Yeah, we might have to go outside at that point.
Josh Sheluk (31:18):
Yeah, nobody wants that. What are the kids going to do?
Matthew Kempton (31:23):
Well, maybe on the topic of kids, and maybe the last one that’s I think kind of fun is that another one of these expectations for 2024 is that universities will view the creator economy as a visible career path and as a new father with a 14 month old at home, this is something I’d never really thought about before, but in the last little while I’ve seen some stats on it was interviewing high school students on what they wanted to be in the future, what their hopeful career was. And I couldn’t believe the percentage that went towards being a creator, being a YouTube star, being any of these areas that no one of our vintage ever would’ve considered a job. It wasn’t a job, but now it’s a job. So
Josh Sheluk (32:06):
Is it a job, Matt?
Matthew Kempton (32:11):
Well, some people do very well, there’s no question. And I guess to being an entrepreneur, it’s an easy step in low capital risks. You’re an entrepreneur, but there’s only so much bandwidth we all have. And we just walked through that in our last conversation there, so only so many people can do well in this area. And it’s certainly not everyone in the high school graduating class of 2024 here. So I think it’s become more of a job. It is a real thing, but I worry that that is, we as a society are saying our young people are saying, that’s exactly what we all want to be. This one thing. What about being a doctor? What about being a lawyer? What about being a portfolio manager? Yeah,
Josh Sheluk (32:54):
So the fact that it’s bringing the university and education system into it I thought was quite interesting. And I wonder if this develops, maybe by the time your son is of university age, this develops into something where it’s like going to acting school or going to art school, you’re going to content creation school, whatever that looks like. So I guess that’s where it’s going potentially. And it seems to be maybe a little bit more of an accessible way, a little bit more tangible for people of that, again, that vintage, that age to here’s my path to stardom. Instead of being a movie star, I’m going to be a content creator.
Matthew Kempton (33:38):
Yeah, you’re very right. This might be the new movie star, but is university the right place to go to learn that? I mean, who are the real experts in this? While they’re the content creators, they’re the ones who have the proven audience or the ones who have the proven viewers, not necessarily the professors of marketing and maybe other areas that are just going to have to learn this from the creator. So is the real way to learn how to be good at this through YouTube, through watching classes there? And so do I need to put any more money into my RESP or am I done contributing? Just get YouTube premium. No ads and ’em all set.
Josh Sheluk (34:14):
There you go. Start young stardom young. So as we kind wrap up here, Matt, is there anything trend-wise that you see coming in 2024 that you didn’t see represented on this list at all?
Matthew Kempton (34:29):
Oh, that’s a great question. Come back to me with that one. Let me know if you have one.
Josh Sheluk (34:33):
Well, you know what didn’t, I’ve been thinking about it, and if you asked me off the top, it would have to be something. It’s boring and it’s overdone, but it would have to be something related to ai. I think we’re just in the fledgling stages of this evolution or revolution, if we want to call it that. So I think there’s going to be a lot to come in that space. It seems like the trend accelerated in 23, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it accelerate for another couple years. I think there’s a lot to come in that space.
Matthew Kempton (35:10):
Yeah. I’ll latch onto with that one. I think the saying that that space, it’s moving quickly, and I just read the chat, GPT, it’s one years old, so one year anniversary, and look how far it’s come in one year. In one more year. I think we’re going to be in a very different place, and hopefully it’s that and other aspects of AI are helping towards productivity and helping for the good versus what some predict are concerns of it.
Josh Sheluk (35:36):
Yeah. One more. We won’t be here. We won’t need to be here. We’ll have AI doing these podcasts for us. Exactly. Thanks Matt. Alright, thanks Josh.
Colin White (35:45):
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