Charles Cormier — The Power Broker Thesis: Why Charles Cormier Is Betting on Humans, Not Agents [music] Well, welcome to another episode of Pale Blue Nexus. I am delighted to have my buddy Charles on here. Charles, we've been uh working together for a while here and just gotten to know you. Um you're very interesting fellow and um tell me how you would first describe yourself and uh maybe then I'll start asking my questions. An alien sometimes and most of the times a founder. Uh founder is definitely my identity. It's my rocks, my icebergs, who I am. It allows me to express myself freely on a daily basis while earning some money. We live in a capitalistic system, right? So, a founder and you started your first agency when you were 19, right? Like tell me about that and what you've learned since then. Yeah. Um I Yeah. Back then I was a student, right? Like at 19 I was still trying to find myself, one could say. I started a couple of side hustles. Um I was doing drop shipping before it was cool. I was buying [ __ ] on uh AliExpress, right? Alibaba was in 201 12, 13, 14. And I would resell it on Kijiji, you know, Kijiji, the Yep. Can Canadian website. Yeah. So, I would buy it online and I would sell these physically at very high margins. So, that was cool. That was my first understanding that, oh, entrepreneurship can have me earn way more money than my uh $10 an hour that I was paid at my two or three jobs, right? Like I was already a hustler back then. And I landed this job for this very odd guy at in sales. He was uh LED light uh company CEO [snorts] and he was like yeah go and do some cold calls for me. So I started doing 100 200 uh phone calls a day for him. I failed a lot but that taught me so much and he was impressed with me because he made me his uh VP marketing even though I failed at making calls. And then we launched an agency together eventually uh a marketing agency called initial medias. That was like in 2017. And at the same time um I became a stu an exchange student uh for uh my university. They sent me to Hong Kong. Right. So I had my businesses. I had a couple of jobs. I was a student back then. And Hong Kong was great because I needed to sort of run away from my house right from my parents. Um, bunch of teenagers will understand the situation here. And Hong Kong, I was in a foreign country. I had a culture shock with a random time zone that's not so friendly to. And I [snorts] was making money from my computer at on the other side of the world. That was another big insight, right? The first insight was like, "Oh [ __ ] entrepreneur can have me make more than my job. " And then like Charles with a laptop can make money at the other side of the world while all the other students were studying and not making money. So that was a big insight, right? And that fundamentally taught me that oh, from a laptop I couldn't make money, right? So could tell the rest of the story, but it's basically being me being a nomad for the rest uh for the next 5 years with my wife that I met in Mexico, [snorts] making very good money from my laptop, from my agencies, and just having a blast while doing it. So that that was the the next sequel. [snorts] That seems like a very important sort of lesson that people nowadays have to learn, I think, like with the way the economy is going. um talk about like what you know and what sort of advice you would give to people who are starting off and looking to do what you do. Yeah, yesterday I wrote a post about that. Like I'll start with like an a piece of advice that circulated out there that's really toxing my opinion to young founders which is that give your [ __ ] for free, right? Like it's the horsy advice like give stuff for free, right? [clears throat] I think that's terrible advice. Um and then I'll I'll go back to the last lesson and probably like where to start, right? But where not to start is like giving yourself for free. I think it undervalues you. It doesn't teach you the fundamentals. The fundamentals are pick an ICP, right? Pick an ideal customer persona. Um try out offers to them. Obviously, not what is an offer, it's something valuable to them and see what sticks, right? And what's the best way to do that? Fundamentally it's uh to start a podcast and to start uh cold emailing that ICP right so you can use platforms like Apollo or instantly uh you reach out these folks asking them hey do you want to be on a podcast that's the first offer right and then on a podcast uh well even before they book the podcast on the county link you ask them filtering questions make sure that they're good they're not schmucks that they have budget for you and then on a podcast you ask them a series of questions Right. So what that what what that does is it qualifies them and it also gives you the data to forge the right product for them. That's how I would start if I would be 17 or 18. Obviously I start with a laptop, right? Like most kids nowadays their parents buy them a laptop. Um and you can go work anywhere. I think that's uh that's like oh just do it, right? Like at now is the right time. It's always been the right time. It's been the right time since 10 years ago. And then the the way to do it, the the entry point is a podcast. Podcast is valuable for the person you interview every uh and I would advise for you to go in B2B, not B2C, right? So interview other founders, other CEOs. That's the way B2C is hard. B2C has less budget. [snorts] And then you'll find out that these founders and CEOs, they have human needs, right? They want uh to they want for young people to ask them questions. They want to talk. People are lonely nowadays, right? And you will get data on the other side and you might get a client one times out of five or 10, right? if you throw them the right offer that the offer after your podcast could be, hey, um, you told me during the podcast that you struggled with your ads, you know, how about um, I rebuild uh, your ads for this month and I charge you a small retainer and a performance fee on the back end, something like that. You test out 10 of these. Eventually, you'll find out like what works for them. So, that's how I would advise young people to start. And obviously do start a business, right? Because AI is coming. Do not go try to fetch a job. You will get wrecked by the agentic tsunami that's coming. So do start a business in B2B and use a podcast to find out what's your product market fit. Uh thank you for that. Like that's amazingly powerful and it's actually quite a for a person with a lot of agency it makes a lot of sense. Like I think you get it Charles because like you're a very highly agentic type of person. Um and I think we all need to kind of shift to to that in in this economy. Um but I would say like knowing you you're you're just a bit ahead. So we may have to be patient with some people who are not able to implement. But I wasn't ahead earlier in my life you know like um I mean my dad was an entrepreneur that's the benefit right. My dad never really spent time with me and tried to make me an entrepreneur, which is good. He gave me freedom, right? But I would definitely impose entrepreneurship on my kids, uh, knowing what's happening. Um, and then, you know, like I have an addictive type of personality, so was hooked to video games, then drugs, then women, right? So, it's it's like never I've never really been on the right path. And I I randomly met this mentor that I told you, right? Like that we [snorts] decided to start a business together. Um but it's not like I mean yes I' I've always had ambition and energy but I think anyone can be that you know like fundamentally what are humans? They're very gritty creatures, right? We're also [snorts] very creative creatures and we're social creatures. Once we understand that her neighbor doesn't have a job and that the [snorts] wife doesn't have a job that like a bunch of people are being replaced by I think we'll move together and we'll make the only rational move we can after of course protesting and crying to the government right and that is to take agency and start your own company. I think the future is [snorts] fully entrepreneurial and by the way if that cannot happen by its own and obviously I want to contribute to that problem. I'm launching my school right defineschool. com that will teach kids AI and agency and spirituality I guess and relationships right like these things that aren't uh taught at school and of course physical activity [snorts] but I think most humans have it uh in themselves right entrepreneurship is not this thing that is foreign to us there is a degree to entrepreneurship and like most jobs what really happened if you ask me is that the industrial revolution, right? It created these things called corporations and corporations sort of enslaved humans into 9 to5 and corporations were so powerful that this became the norm, right? Um it's like safety. Oh, sure safety. But is safety a good deal? Probably not. It's a poison pill, right? Comfort is death. like you you get comfort every day, but one day you [snorts] wake up, you're and then you need to go into retirement, right? And you know what happens in retirement? Retirement, people die sooner because they're retired. There's science behind that. It's boring. Uh it's it's uh there's a ceiling put over your head. I don't think humans are made to to have ceilings. So, I think this is all about to change. And I I don't buy the the thing of like entrepreneurs are born not made, right? I think anyone can become entrepreneurs. It's to me it's more an equation of how much stress is imposed on you and what are your options, right? What do you think? What do I think? Um yeah. No, I you said something there. I mean, I used to be a government worker at the at the beginning of my career and I quit. I just I couldn't handle the boringness and like I saw people who honestly died a year or two after retiring and it I just kept seeing a pattern and I could see I didn't realize there was a science behind it that it was just a personal observation of mine but uh yeah I mean uh I've always had that desire to to be entrepreneurial. So I I totally get where you're coming from. I didn't have a father like yours that was an entrepreneur, but uh definitely felt it deeply within me. So yeah, my dad is like a conservative entrepreneur, right? Um he's a consultant. Um not to take anything away from him, but still like couldn't work with my dad nowadays. We have I mean we did work together and I love my dad. I love what he's up to, but I just I'm way more on the risk takingaking side of things, right? And yeah [snorts] like you talk about 9 to5 right like came keywords my mind obes obesity diabetes you know like all these disease that comfort created and obviously it's like it's way better than the medieval times in which people would die from disease and terrible life conditions and quality of life has definitely gone up but I think we've taken it a bit too far right and a bit a bit of stress on the system is actually good, you know, you need to stress it to grow. And I think that's what we're missing out nowadays. Like society is uh definitely not veering the right direction. If you check like at the macro level, um you know, like Trump being elected twice by in the US, like there's there's a problem, you know, there's a a big problem. There's a a tumor uh that is growing in society. And [snorts] I I don't think it'll be pretty by the way like the the shift from the job market that we have right now to the uh AI shock it'll be very nasty you know like there there will be wars and revolts but when humans are done with their tantrums I I think most of them will try to adapt to this this new reality which would would be most way more entrepreneurial and by the way also if you check the trends even without AI I feel entrepreneurship and freelancing are are up. Um it's definitely got go trending up and up. I believe there was a statistics at at some point was like 50% of um Canadian or US citizens have some kind of side hustle, right? One thing you said about um comfort and being in a nineto-five comfort. I've experienced it myself is like you you tend to sort of like take that um desire you have for more entrepreneurial things and you risk with different things. You maybe risk with your money. You start collecting stupid things. You start spending going out to restaurants like every night. Uh you know there there's certain wasting that goes on when you have something comfort. Have you noticed that? Um, I go to restaurants quite often and I'm my number one thing you ask me like how I describe myself. I think like my number one skill as an entrepreneur is energy efficiency, right? And every time I go to the restaurant I I view it as an investment. Um, I went to a restaurant yesterday with my wife. That was a Tuesday. I think the best definition of life is when the the week sounds like a weekend, right? And you're like, "Oh, that's that's making it for sure. " And yesterday we went to the restaurant because my pregnant wife, she worked hard with the little daughter we have and just like giving her a break, you know, and her favorite restaurant and just chilling for a while even if we have the the crying baby next to us during the restaurant. It's and also give give us a sense of normaly, right? Because having a newborn daughter is quite intense. So um we like going to the restaurants many times and we it's not comfort. not waste you know it's um I think it's just like a higher um a higher life but there is this thing called the the hedonic treadmill right and adapting to luxury 100% I have that 100% like I have all kinds of toys in this house and I have everything that's what I was going to get collectibles and toys I think I see a lot of men doing that these days yeah and even my sports bike I'm not I mean the But yeah, the sports bikes like for example a month two I was getting a bit bored with it but it's such an interesting and beautiful and incredible machine that you can use it at at other times and then the the sensation is there some other times is there uh it fluctuates I would say so you get adapted to these things but they still have a value and even even this toy in specific right like the the superbike that that I have um it's great because it's like a trophy for my efforts It's a physical manifestation for all that digital work that I put, right? And I think I think that's like forging the the two worlds together. Like I don't have a physical job in which I I use my hands to build things. And it's just nice to see that bits and bites gets converted in physical things and that weights in my soul. It's nice to know that I have it in the driveway, right? Even if there's like some hedonic adaptation, I think it's worth it. So being rich is 100% worth it. It's great. It's um but I could also tell you that my happiness levels weren't that different when I didn't had that kind of money, for example. So I don't know, dudes. But last thing on the topic, um the bike, for example, I I do think it has an ROI in business. just owning this and getting on it. It's like it makes me a different type of individual. So, there is an ROI in business to owning these things, I must say. So, yeah. Um, any thoughts on that? Totally get what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, I I I was insinuating of of waste in a different way um than than this thread went through, but it was like I did find myself when you're in a comfort zone and you're at a 9 to5, you sometimes don't think very efficiently and you're not you don't bring your best to the table because I I guess that's where I was going. It's like sometimes you don't make be the best financial decisions. you don't make the best uh efficiency with your time. Um so so it was it was more on that angle of things which I think people will have to start doing as they become more entrepreneurial. Well, slow suffocation uh being stuck in these jobs like dude, even now like with everything that I do, I feel that I'm plateauing, right? Feeling that you're plateauing is good by the way because it shows that you have a desire for more and you have ambition. [snorts] But even nowadays, I feel I'm plateauing, right? So, good questions like what what to do. And by the way, I never thought I would plateau, right? like 5 years ago. I've always used coaches and psychotherapists and it's like yeah no I know I'm never felt that I've plate I won't ever feel that I'm plateauing but guess it comes at a phase of your business sooner or later and when that happens I just try to disrupt some of my habits and patterns and routines right just to get myself out the zone so the best disrupt in my case is like very hard and long physical activity so this weekend I'm gonna go crunch a 30k K. Um, I have 125k in in Canada in like couple months down the road, so I need to start training anyways. But when you know, like something is itching in my soul and it's like, yeah, you need to move your ass because you're you're not in a good situation right now, you're like in a diminishing return type of situation. I just need that I need to impose a lot on my mental and my body, right? like um when you do that, it's like a hard physical reset. Um this weekend I'll be at 30k. Obviously, it's 30k is not a lot, but still enough to to cause change. Normally, I do these things called ultra hits. I just go on my roof here. I have a gym and I just start crunching like thousand push-ups, right? Which is [ __ ] crazy. [snorts] And 2,000 squats, right? I even filmed them on YouTube. The thing is when you do that, you also do like a biochemical reset, right? So I view the world like through biochemical lens like we have all kinds of chemicals in our body right now dopamine serotonin testosterone cortisol right and these things they just like hard reset everything just like fasting right uh the these types of things but fasting nowadays I feel I wouldn't have enough energy take care of my daughter I'd be irritable or something so yeah just like hard resetting yourself with something physical old if you're if you're stuck somewhere. [snorts] Talk about sleep since you're on the health angle. What do you think about sleep? And are you one of those guys that has to get eight hours sleep and how do you prepare for that or do you not get eight hours? Oh, I get nine. So, I don't I get nine. Beautiful. So, yeah, sleep is the number one drug like Brian Johnson says. Um I have all the devices to track my sleep. Whoopura ring aid sleep as a bed which is great. eight sleep is a good investment. It's impossible not to get your 10 15k back that you invest in an eight sleep because that sleep will have you perform instantly better the next day. Right. So yeah, my sleep with my daughter's been like up and down but uh way better than 99% of most parents. Um I've I'm still religious about my eight to nine hours of sleep. um while someone is taking care of my daughter, right? And she does her nights right now. So, it's pretty good. [snorts] Um I've been guilty of like micro doing um modafan sometimes because I felt my brain wasn't its normal self with the the even like 30 minutes less or an hour less of sleep can affect my brain, right? Because my days are so intense. I need like my full 9 hour. So, I've been doing that as of late. I noticed uh actually this week yesterday that yeah I need to not micro dose medapanyl even if it's like once a week. Medafanyl is like the limitless drug by the way. Um and yeah I feel that will start improving because even if I slept like eight hours and a half I still notice like not feeling great. But today for example I woke up naturally without an alarm. I think I it was like 8 uh yeah 8 a. m. and I slept at like 11 p. m. or something like that and I woke up naturally with full energy, right? Like not feeling some kind of foggess. Uh how's your sleep nowadays? I I admittedly don't sleep well. I need to take whatever it is that you're taking or look into whatever it is that you're looking. So I'm going to research that. You know what is the best sleep drug that to sleep? Uhhuh. It's physical activity. It's It's hard physical activity, especially the legs. So, I I mountain bike. I I'm a big mountain biker. I just haven't Yeah, but that's cardio. So, if you want to sleep good tonight, like my diag Do you have weights around the house or do you have access to Absolutely. I used to do farmer carries a lot. I love farmer carries. There you go. But go with squats. Squats will are the best thing to knock your brain down when sleeping. Um, and heavy ones like take your heaviest weights and just start squatting and lunging um, very heavily and you know when the next day your legs hurt, you know that this meant a good night of sleep last night. If you kill your legs that it will like put so much endorphins in your uh blood and brain at like 8 or 900 p. m. or 10 p. m. when you sleep, you'll you'll sleep very you'll go to sleep very fast and then your quality of sleep, your REM will be way higher. That's that's my doctor's medicine for good sleep. Impossible that you don't sleep if you did like a leg day. Yeah. No, thanks for that. I'm actually going to research a a couple of the things that you do. And don't research, just do them. Just do them. Well, that 81 sleep thing that you were talking about. What is that? Oh, eight sleep. Eight sleep. Eight. Yeah, eight sleep. It's a mattress um that adapts to your body temperature with AI and it uh shifts your body depending on how you move at night. Um, and uh, it has brown noise. Uh, which is great. Brown noise, um, [snorts] yeah, like there's white noise and brown noise. Brown noise is will shut pretty much everything down, right? So, my room here, uh, blacked out curtains. We even have like wall panels, so like you can't hear anything. The brown noise is like at 71 out of 100 on [snorts] a sleep. uh my mattress is like minus three and I put earplugs on top of that. So is like is very good sleeping conditions and then one sleep hack um for people right like I do two things when I go to bed normally I added one protocol on top of the second but the first is just like try to meditate right um so just meditation and the second is tell yourself a story so like not thinking of business that's like a that's definitely a big no no I is guilty of that lots of times because when you start thinking about business stuff depends on your personality but me I'll think about another thing and another thing it's like it's major branch and that's why I have the perfect brain to be successful in business is because my brain it like branches out to a bunch of things and I get to insights very quickly but that's exactly why I was a so so sleeper back then I used to dream about business I would do business with my pillow I would wake up and like talk to my pillow about business was so weird. Um, [laughter] so I tell yourself a story and we all have like a specific story and me my story and that tells you a lot about my personality it's always the same. It's climbing uh a cold mountain in the snow, right, with Gogggins, David Gogggins, and being chased by like special agents and just like taking them out, right? It's always that story. And I I asked Chad GPT and Claude like, "Is this good?" They tell they told me, "No, this is ex exceedingly bad. It will generate cortisol and will put you in fight or flight. But guess what? Like me, my brain, it's comfortable in discomfort, in utter discomfort, right? I could tell tell you about my last 110k race in Brazil and you understand. But me, I I love I drive in like harsh conditions, right? Like I'm a wartime CEO, so this get me to sleep like in five minutes. Yeah, that advice was for a nineto-5. I think [laughter] 9 to5ers would go to sleep thinking about porn and peanut butter jelly sandwiches. I guess um that that was time to advice. the the I could track I could tell you that my sleep has gone downhill ever since some of these newer models came out in AI because like once it became once it became like hell I could do something with this my mind couldn't stop thinking about what I could do and I think that was around like set 4.5 opus 4.5 4.6 fix and it's like that that's when I could track specifically that my sleep went downhill. So it's like but there's time for performance and there's time for recovery, right? And like mistaking boat is a fundamental mistake because you won't be at your your top when it's performance. And right think like there's always this argument of like yeah sprinting as a hunter taking your prey down eating right recovery and performance. I think that's pretty fun. If you're always on then I feel the performances start declining eventually. But I I know what you're saying. Uh I mean it's incredible, right? But um yeah, and I'm all about like the AR arms race and the agentic revolution and [ __ ] happening super fast, [snorts] but there's other um shades and colors to that equation. For example, as of late, instead I I don't feel I'm in my agentic phase yet, right? Like ideally I'd have like millions of agents under me, but me right now I'm in my banking phase, right? like I'm my identity right now is an allocator. It's a banker. It's not necessarily related to the agentic revolution. I feel I still have time to get in my agentic identity, right? And I do vibe code on weekends and I do have all these systems, but and I am on a war path. I am on an urgency plan, but I I don't feel necessarily that we're on a path to crack it yet with the LLMs, you know, like we need some extra ingredients to obtain super intelligence and for [ __ ] to start go going incredibly fast and us not sleeping and me popping medafanyl at 1:00 a. m. in the morning because singularity is happening. Um, I feel we still have time and I feel that as humans we still need to develop more skills than just hustling and taking advantage of these models 247, right? There's still that human magic, that intuition. So, I definitely won't lose sleep over that. But like I said, I am also feeling that I'm on a plateau and I need to move my [ __ ] ass. But I know that if I would think of business at night, it's [ __ ] would go downfall from here. [laughter] You're you've been in growth like for a long time. Um I've seen your cold email sort of skills firsthand and I think they're amazing. Um what's the the most overrated AI tactic in 2026? Uh yeah, I mean AI cold emails been out like in the last uh what five years, right? So AI cold emails aren't new. I still feel they have lots of potential but most of these AI cold email approaches come from or human brains is like you need to find what works with your human brain. These are like trends in the moment trends and like tip of the spear type of approaches in the realm of cold email and try to reproduce them and scale them with AI. That that's the approach that still works. [snorts] But like saying sending an AI personalized intro to someone about their latest LinkedIn post still doesn't scale too much because and the litmus for that is easy is that people nowadays they scan the email and they're like yeah their personalized intro is it built by an AI or not? Does it sound like an AI? And even even if it remotely sounds like an AI they'll just discard it. Right? So, I'd rather be upfront with someone and send them like a good offer like, "Hey, do you want to come to my podcast or Spark Tank or VC Summit? " That'll get me a higher acceptance rate than starting with this silly [ __ ] intro uh talking about stuff that they potentially suspect is not true. Yeah, I I experienced that as well, too. It's like once you once you feel like somebody's using AI on you, even on a LinkedIn post, it's like, okay, well, I'm not reading it. Right. So, um, and you've, uh, what people have always been saying like cold email is dead for the last year, year and a half, but it still works. It it's it's really good if you if you format it correctly and you you do it right. Yes. I mean, it's dead for them, right? Um, even cold calls, right? Like I used to own a call center with 200 employees and people are saying cold calling is dead. And I guess it it es and flows. Of course, it's not like being in the early days of cold email. But if you check the fundamentals of energies and the laws of physics in the early days of cold email, nothing was automated. So even if you had a 10% reply rate on your 10 [ __ ] emails, who cares? That's one reply. Mhm. When automation came and when it was democratized to everyone, your reply rate has gone down to two. But guess what? You're sending now 20,000 emails. That's 40 replies, right? 400 replies. So yeah, people and humans generally, they love to complain about stuff they're not successful at and they're frustrated at. Um, and most of these guys, they probably want emotional support more most more than they want results, right? So it's like, yeah, dude, sure. Keep believing cold email is dead while the your competition is eating your lunch, you know? That's that's the best you can do, you know? like haters will hate and I'm guilty of hating sometimes as well. Um, and also a good part of that is content, right? It it looks very good for you to start your LinkedIn post with cold email is dead. It's a great hook, right? Yeah. Is it true? Probably not. Is most of the content on social media true? Probably not. Especially not on LinkedIn. It's mostly theater, right? So, cold email still works. um podcast as an offer and a a funnel and a win-win human psychology approach still 100% works you know like humans want to win if I invite you on a podcast and on cold email cold email is just a medium right whether I do it on LinkedIn and cold email has very few incidents and and except that LinkedIn they'll see my face higher conversion rate but email there's greater volume so volume typically works uh quantity wins over quality and that they're part of the same equation, right? So, it still very much works. Um, I definitely won't start doing Tik Tok ads and all of this as a channel because I target B2B and me it's more of an ecosystem type of thing. So, yeah, top of funnel start with cold email doesn't really matter. It's like I'm going to build a relationship with that person [snorts] and they're going to enter my little ecosystem and then they're going to start referring me people. and they can start closing for me and then we can build the greatest foundary ecosystem in the world which is what we're building together right and I think this foundry ecosystem will resist the shock of AGI right that's that's my full thesis it's like helping entrepreneurs making founders better and creating a AGI uh resistant community I like that a lot and you you you sort of put this in your LinkedIn title you're a power broker And I guess that comes from the fact that you're building these relationships and that you have certain connections and you also have the technical skills to do what you do as well. Talk about that title. Yeah, so like I said previously, people are checking in the direction of vibe coding and building agents and I'm looking in that direction as well and I may be testing stuff all the time, but my thesis especially and everything I'm designing needs to be AGI resistant. AGI is 100% going to happen. The job disruption 100% going to happen. I've talked to so many delusional founders and SEALs. I've talked to a couple of few very intelligent people educated that do agree with that thesis. It's 100% going to happen. There's nothing uh that can stand against that. It's just like a timeline, right? So when there's a social aspect of it, there's needs to be human adoption and so forth. So while people are looking in the direction of oh let's use AI I'm looking the direction of what will be AI resistance right so what's AI resistant is human relationships uh people for a very long time will only want to still buy from humans and will trust humans and they'll be a great distress especially on the agentic side of things so if you can insert yourself as a node of all the biggest power players in the world all the biggest companies in the world, all the best founders and allocators in the world and operators, then this gives me a trillion dollar moat. Um because I will be part of the discussion as per oh we want to uh spend a billion dollar for this contract like how do we make it up? Oh, Charles Charles is like middleman. Oh, Charles will take a percentage of that because I'm trusted and I already delivered. Right now, it's in GTM and fundraising, right? [snorts] And I'm just a power broker. I know everyone that matters in the space of B2B and founders and CEOs and VCs. That's my [ __ ] And that's why I consider myself as a banker right now and quote unquote broker. I'd rather be a banker than broker and all locator. While most people are checking on the tech stack of things, I'm still yeah playing in the fundamentals. And these fundamentals are not about to be reshaped. Uh even by AGI, even when [ __ ] moves super fast, I'll have agents come to me to ask me if they they can be introduced to someone in my network, right? And that that still doesn't move away. It's complex that thesis. There's a lot of moving pieces and you need to filter who you let in. You need to add value to these people. at scale with technology in my case. So that's the that's the main game I' I'm playing right now. That's the main game I've thought about and AB tested with everything that's happening in that market and I feel will scale for a very long time. This is my bank account basically. I fully agree. There's not going to be a future where humans are not part of the equation and we're still going to trust each other more than we trust code. Um, even though we like to say that uh code is law sometimes in crypto. Um, yeah. Yeah, I love code, too. So, talk to me about like these three businesses that you have. You're you're married, you've got a daughter. Like, what's what's keeping this from collapsing? Is it this regimented sleep 9 hours, go do the the 30k? Like, how are you holding it together? Yeah. five dogs and all kinds of [ __ ] And but even dogs and wives and daughters, they're not noise to the system. They are the system. Yeah. Right. Um the dogs, they're love machines, you know, like constant amount of love. And what do I give them back? Well, I give them love. I give them walks. I give them physical activity. I give them play. Give them food, water, uh shelter, right? like it's it's all systems. the [snorts] wife it's not she's not taking from me of course like uh it's challenging to build uh scalable relationships because relationships is like like I like we talked earlier right in childhood we both come from different background different icebergs and then both of us collide right and it's like oh what is compatible what is not what needs to be adapted but it's a system in itself and I've worked on that system for the past 10 years and you can tell me the same it's it's challenging But it's beautiful, right? What you get. Um, which again, what's the output of that? It's love. It's And love is Mhm. I think it's still misunderstood. It's still certainly chemicals and serotonins and dopamine and all of that, but it's the underlying factor, right? Like once you remove capitalism and all the noise, what you get is love in humans. And that that's beautiful. Same for the daughter. the daughter's infinite love machine times a thousand, right? It's there's nothing more beautiful than than that. And it it brings a sense of peace. And for folks like I that are very cold, rational, technical, it's we need that else we just implode, right? It's uh it's intriguing. So how do I keep it all together? Well, systems, right? So uh sleep is one. Um, physical activity is one, dogs is one. Um, general business philosophies, right? Like I don't work with schmucks. I've stopped doing that. That was stressful, right? Like back then when I started my business, I used to work with realtors and sometimes finish the day and you have all that stress, that noise hanging up to you because these [ __ ] dumb asses don't know how to manage their lives and their business and they put their stress on you. Yeah. and you know like they they rely on you to to hold them together right so that's not a system that's a broken system and that that brings all kinds of negative back to your life so nowadays I just work with people I want to be like you know like very successful founders with many exits 10 million plus nets and it's just inspiring to be around them and to build stuff with them and to partner up with them right to get equity in their sheds So that's that's another system, you know, Sunny Sunny's a system in itself doesn't add stress to my life. I don't add stress to his life. It's win-win, right? So at at and to start where we started that interview, right? Like not giving your [ __ ] for free. When you give your [ __ ] for free, you attack you attract schmucks, right? You attract takers. You attract like predators, but like the beta kind of predator, right? Low in the food chain. Don't want to be around these people. they just take and they just run away with your stuff, right? Like hyenas, [ __ ] hyenas. Um, so all kinds of stuff like that. But the the common denominator here is just AB testing stuff in your life, seeing what works, what doesn't. Is it a system or is it like a a clog in the system, right? Is is it noise or is it like real signal? And you do that enough time in your personal life, in your business, um, stuff starts flowing and slowly scaling. And that's that's my life. The thing is with the plateau I'm describing, maybe I'm growing too slow, right? Maybe I'm comparing myself with folks I shouldn't compare myself with. Um, like me, I wanted to be that way, but I'm I'm going like this, right? Uh, [snorts] but then the question is, for example, if I would want to be Elon, right? Like I go like this in business, but I go like that in most other life areas. Health, relationships, and all of this. I still want to win the game very big and like yeah, make it Elon big for sure. 10x, 100x, the thousandx what what he does, whatever that means. But I I go with scale. I I'm not down to to risk it all on the table and rely on luck to to win, right? I want systems. I want something predictable and something that compounds Warren Buffett style, you could say. Yeah. One thing that you said, I mean, all of that's great. Um, but the one thing that you said uh about love and how you get sort of renewed and rejuvenated by that, like I could have a terrible day. And then the moment one of my kids tells me like they love me, it's like it just recharges me. So, I totally get where where that's coming from. And I don't I don't think that's ever replaceable. So, I think uh thank you for that. It it helped me. Um, what are you building right now that you're totally obsessed about? And I know you said that you feel like you're plateauing, but like, um, where do what what do you what's next for you? And where can people find you? Yeah. What's next is like GM Ventures and Raz Rocket as cash cows to build stuff that is more scalable like raise now. AI that I'm building with Sunny. It's a aic uh fundraising raise. ai. It's pretty fun. Uh that's what we're building next. We're raising capital for this. Uh already over subscribed, so not like I I'm raising more right now. Um what's next? I mean, I have a bunch of things for this year. The 125k race will be quite epic. Me and Sunny are organizing a mastermind in Waka. You're definitely invited. So, you should come to that. Uh that's going to be pretty fun. uh here first the Wajaka Mountains and at the beach August 17th or something like that. um launching [snorts] my fund mactf fun. com. Uh it's going to invest in YC companies 10 million per batch and then I'm going to hatch all these other fund thesises because why not raise as much money as possible and invest as much in the best companies as possible which fills my eeky guy life mission financial goals. I think I think that's what's next. And then the power broker thing that should evolve fully into Charles building agents full-time I believe next year. And I my my life goal and business goal in the next 5 10 years is like being part of Frontier AI and probably have my own Frontier AI lab uh and contributing to everything that's happening [snorts] making discoveries uh potentially fostering agentic science right like these AI scientists that can learn from their hypothesis and and conclusions and just branch out with new discoveries and faster think that can benefit humanity gigantically. So really deploying my agentic wings in the next couple of years. Um fascinating times for sure and I guess like staying in the present as well and just enjoying what I have and being grateful right and stopping and being grateful and fixing some of my systems that are going sideways. Yeah. One one thing I met with your co-founder Sunny uh and you know he he said you know there's he's an incredibly wise guy um not in that sense but like uh in the literal sense and he says like you know there's a lot of people out there that have um like you said Elon's going this way but in other aspects he's going that way and like sometimes just even holding our families together is is a win right so like I totally get that and yourself yourself right like dude 80% of humans are broken and are not in control of themselves and I even won't claim that I'm not that kind of human sometimes you know so even just holding yourself together is enough right that's incredibly hard and in this modern society with that much noise just that is a win just that is something to be grateful just being aware of the fact that you're alive right now and that you're here, right? Like that's a victory. Well, we'll end on that. Charles, I appreciate your time and uh thanks for coming