Cutting Through the BS on Economy Shifts, Crypto Trends, Luxury Disruption, and the Future of Business

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What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It is January 10th, 2025, our weekly marketing and business news of the week.
I'm Ryan Alford, your host. I'm joined by Chris Hansen down in Miami.
What's up, Chris? What's up, Ryan? How are you, brother? Good. Happy New Year again.
Again. I know.

I think, can you say Happy New Year like more than, like, you keep saying it all January. Is it only good, like, the first, you know, 10 days of January? I read yesterday someone said you can't say it after the 7th.
I don't know why the 7th. Well, I'm going to, hey, we buck trends around here.
Happy New Year, wherever you are, whenever you are, however you're listening. Coming to you from the studios here at my place called Social House in Greenville, South Carolina.
That's where we do this show. I got a co-work lounge here in Greenville.
If you visit this wonderful city, stop by and see us. You can co-work, you can drink, you can watch games, you can hang out.
Mixed use. And of course, the studio of your number one marketing and business show on the planet is right here so come and see us you know chris just getting back into the groove back from the old dr dominican republic had a nice week with with the fam wife and kids yep nicole and i had good time with the boys and did the beach thing on the DR and the resort and all conclusive and all that stuff.

So, you know.

You look a little tan.

Yeah, I got a little tan. A little brown.

It's funny. I didn't realize that I know it's sort of their winter time there, but obviously the temperature is still like 85.

The sun wasn't quite as strong as it normally is, which is nice. We't gone in january in a long time but we had a good time a little fun little sun little uh coco bongo no we didn't do that we did hang out at the resort lots of mexican beer el presidente hey not a bad beer i did kind of miss my ultra though my craft my craft beer.
El Presidente. Hey, not a bad beer.
I did kind of miss my ultra, though. My craft.
My craft beer in the States. Yeah.
Ultra. High-end mech ultra.
Yeah, exactly. So, wherever you are, whenever you are listening, I hope the New Year has kicked off.
I hope you haven't blasted through any of your New Year's resolutions yet. You know, if you're having a dry January, sorry for you.

If you're, you know, working out, hope you're sticking with it.

I don't know.

What are all those resolutions?

Has the gym been more busy for you?

Yeah, it wasn't for the first couple of days,

but then yesterday it was out of control, busy.

It was packed.

Yeah.

So. Has to be expected.
I definitely saw some new faces. Yeah.
Hopefully they stick with it, man. I hope so.
I know. I just do it every, you know, I'm a four to five a week guy.
You know, if you just make it a lifestyle, you got to make it just your lifestyle. And look, some days only get 20 minutes in, but you got to do it.
You got to get the heart pumping. Show up.
Show up. It's what we do, and I just try to make it, I don't know.
I've been at it the whole way. I grew up with it.
I think it's thankful that my parents were kind of that way. They got in that early 80s, 90s thing with people starting to work out.
So I guess it's in our blood. And my sister and I have always been kind of that workout crew.
So I don't have to set the resolutions around working out. What I might have to do, though, is set it on, you know, maybe cutting back the carbs or something.
I have to dial back the carbs sometimes. But I dropped to like 20 LBs before the old DR trip.
uh i was feeling pretty good i feel pretty good now

it's gonna stick with it i think i'll stick with the carnivore diet that i like which is just steak all the time give me a book bro that's what i brought for lunch today i'm like just give me that steak steak and you know i like some chips and stuff or carbs or rice yeah it's nice but if I got a good steak or a piece of meat.

I am the true, like, dude.

Like, meat and potato guy. That's how it is.
We want to send our love to everybody in California and LA is impacted by the fires that are just out of control there. You obviously pre-record this before the Friday release, but it is not pretty.
And so I don't, you just never know. We take a lot of things for granted.
And, you know, the wind meets fire over there. And it is just an ugly scene.
A lot of people losing homes and cars and valuables and lots of, you know, and life, I'm sure, will be taken taken i don't know what the the toll is exactly but definitely want to send thoughts prayers and just you know an acknowledgement that that shit sucks and we'll see where it lands but it hasn't looked pretty chris i know you have family that's been impacted. Yeah.
My sister was flying back to California yesterday when it all kind of started happening from Florida. And now, and she lives in the neighborhood where it's all going down.
So I know like right before we got on the show, I got a text that they're trying to get a flight back here to just get out of there because it's going to be an apocalyptic, you know, burn zone after this is all said and done. So definitely thoughts and prayers with everyone out there.
And, uh, hopefully it comes to an end soon. Yes, for sure.
So everything we talk about on the show is an article of some format, usually from our friends at Google. If we're being honest, you know, Google and business news, seeing what's happening.
But when we want to talk about politics, we want to keep it straight down the middle as much as possible. Stay independent.
It's like because you get pushed one way or the other when you're reading news. Too far left, too far right.
We want to keep it straight line. That's why we partner with Independence Center.
I was reading one of their articles that was talking about the tax cuts and jobs report, and everything that's happening now with sort of the battle between Congress, left, right, all of these complex things. They're sometimes hard to understand.
You hear about it, you think you should care about it, but you don't understand exactly. That's why Independence Center brings to you articles that really tell you exactly what's happening,

how to interpret what the right or the left

might be saying to you.

You got to go to independencecenter.org,

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Lots of random news here this week.

I think kind of lumped these into two for one here with Meta slash Facebook

and old Mark Zuckerberg. Hey, I give credit to anybody that can change, right? We can judge him.
I mean, he's one of the most wealthy guys on the planet, owns one of the most, I don't know, used, known platforms on the face of the earth. Right.
And, you know, sometimes we go a little far with things. I think they say what I say, the road to hell is paid with good intentions.
So the filtering and the holding back of information that's happened, the censorship that's been prevalent on the social media channels is being dialed back because he acknowledged himself literally that our fact checkers were politically biased. I mean, while I was saying no shit, I was applauding him.
So two things can be true. It could have definitely gone too far, but I can applaud you for at least acknowledging it, making me up for it now.
It's interesting when Mark starts out with all the ufc guys which we'll get to the second part of that news he he's toughening up a little bit and i this isn't about okay who's tough and who's not but it's like it is we're in america and it should not be censorship you don't have to like everything you hear is the bottom line i hear a lot of shit i't like, but it doesn't mean that I can tell someone not to say it or hold it back or start censoring it, especially when you have platforms as big as this is. So they're eliminating third party fact checkers across Facebook, Instagram, and threads, replacing them with user-generated community notes, similar to what Elon is doing with X.

Mark stated that fact checkers, fact... replacing them with user-generated community notes, similar to what Elon is doing with X.

Mark stated that fact checkers have been too politically biased and caused more harm than good.

Yes.

What do you think about this?

A round of applause because I remember on 2020, right, the election, then you had had covid stuff and you had all these doctors getting flagged for misinformation yep it was really eye-opening honestly that was the first time as an american i've ever felt like holy shit like what is going on yep so yeah it is interesting i mean at that point i thought mark zuckerberg was a tool but uh I don't know, man. The guy started competing in jiu-jitsu and doing mixed martial arts and seems to have changed.
Yeah. I mean, it's – Sure, there's other factors.
This is one of the notes that says, the move aligns with a broader shift to the right in met his leadership and comes as president elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. How about we just say it moves instead of like being it moves closer to what is right by the American law, not right or left.
And I don't know if you've been on X, the community notes change they've done is awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, you real time have people fact checking, right? But it's not politically biased and it's not, you're not being just shut down. I feel like that was the other part of the matter too, right? Is that we're just censoring and shutting down accounts, completely removing your voice.
Obviously the other side and other people feel like it's political pandering. And I just feel like- When is more censorship better ever? Yeah.
When is that? And I get, and even Mark acknowledged, we're going to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.

You know, so there are tradeoffs.

But there are tradeoffs when you have free speech and when you have freedoms.

And, you know, for the most part, we've got to live with the good and the bad. It's what makes this, and more good happens than bad when you don't censor.
Right. And make it make sense.
I know they've changed, like, or on the topic, I just thought of this. I know they changed some other policies.
You know, this is relevant to Ryan and I. We have another company called Vacay with hemp products.
There was heavily censorship on Instagram and Facebook with those types of products cannabis medical marijuana they changed policy on that too i saw because i know even when we've dealt with that it's like there's some really vile stuff you can look at on instagram god forbid we post a sleep gummy jar you know i think that where now too, we're coming to more of a balanced approach of quote unquote censorship. Like maybe the sleep gummy is okay, but the naked girls could be censored a little more if we're going to do anything, right? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. It's funny how, you know, the lines get drawn.
Yeah, well. Follow the money a lot of times.
It brings me back to the whole like you need to be vaccinated but also my body my choice it's like all right well which which yeah which is it we're you know but that's but it's better for everyone else if if you know like everybody's spinning something you know let's just admit it and so let's all be able to you know put our spin on it and have the community notes like okay it needs that that's fine but don't i look at the community notes is like the town hall that you're giving the people a voice because to my understanding community notes i it works where people can vote on the fact checkers response. And based on that, that's what becomes the community note.
Yeah, exactly. So it's a collective agreement, not just some third party saying no, false because I don't believe in this.
I think I'm just going to strike this up to Mark coming to his senses a little bit here and evolving as a business leader. Along that same thing, UFC boss to join the board of Facebook.
Wild. Yeah.
Several appointments to Meta's board. I mean, just a quick quick note here how many people still call meta facebook and how people still call x twitter there's been like the worst changeover in names of all time ever i've never called it meta and i tip it and for the most part i i like the guys that you know have done it.
But like, it just shows you that's a hard genie to put back in the bottle

or to change. And for the most part, I like the guys that, you know, have done it.

But, like, it just shows you that's a hard genie to put back in the bottle or to change.

It's a hard rebrand.

Hard rebrand.

I mean, what percent of people truly call Meta Meta?

And what percent call Twitter X?

The people that work there, probably.

That's it.

I would have seen.

Yeah. Because even why isn't the app say meta? It still says Facebook.
I think they know. Yeah.
And I think if Mark had to do that one over again, he probably would. I don't know that Elon would because he's kind of had at least some rationale around X for a long time, owned like X.com for like 10 or 15 years or something like that.

But it's like, I don't know that that's gone well.

Does he have named X too?

Yeah.

Yes, he does.

I think.

Soda and Seven.

Nah, that was from Seinfeld.

That was his favorite.

That was George's favorite names.

Soda and Seven. Anyway, random names and cupcake.
UFC CEO Dana White, John Elkin, and Charlie Songhurst. Elkin is the head of XOR.
Songhurst is an ex-Microsoft executive, and they're all on the Meta slash Facebook board. Zuckerberg highlighted their expertise in AI, wearables, and future technologies.
Dana White, a close ally of Donald Trump, transformed UFC into a global business. White expressed excitement about contributing to AI and emerging technologies.
He's known for advocating free speech. White has faced controversies, including a viral exchange over anti-LGBT remarks by UFC fighters.
It's like they got to throw this in there. Like anything that goes against it.
Who wrote this article? Oh, okay. Yeah, I know why.
Mainstream media. All left-leaning.

Meta-Trump relations.

Meta's recent moves signal improved relations with Trump after a history of tension,

especially post-January 2021's Capitol riot.

Mark Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund

and had personal engagements with him.

Were you aware of that?

The million-dollar Trump's inauguration fund? Yeah. What do you make of that? Smart business? Yeah.
Politics. I want to attribute all of it to jujitsu and a change of heart, but I just think there's a lot more moving parts than that going on.
I think so. So we can call that what it is.
But at the same time, I can appreciate that he's getting some tougher points of view on the board. You know, Dana White won't take any shit.
He's going to speak his mind, you know, like it, love it, leave it.. And he's built a global empire with UFC.
You know, probably, I don't know if it's the fastest growing, but it's one of the most popular sports in the world right now. Across the board.
I mean, I know soccer's always a behemoth in American football here, but UFC's kind of universally, I mean, it's blasted boxing. You know, like, geez, boxing is kicking out of his own fucking way.
Cheating, scandals, bad judges, and who knows what. And fights take it too long to put together.
Dana gets the shit out of the way. It's like, all right, here we go.
It's got one. You don't have all these organizations.
It's just the UFC, right? Middleweight, heavyweight, bantamweight, whatever it is. You don't have the IBF, WBO, WBC.
God, all they do is get in the way of boxing. Dana knows how to build business, streamline it, build a global brand, put the players and the fighters as the champions and putting them out there, their personal brands and all that stuff.
He gets it. We'll'll see what kind of impact that has, but hats off to Mark.
Didn't know if I'd ever say that on the show, you know, kind of panned the metaverse for so long, which he, you know, is still not really come to fruition that I wasn't sure that I would ever agree with anything Mark Zuckerberg did, but you know what? We can all change. And I'm not just saying change because he came to my belief side or

something like that. These are just common sense things

to me. There's some politics going on here.

Yes. But I think the board

stuff, you know, some smart people

with diverse backgrounds,

I think that's the way you

got to grow, right?

You got to. They know they needed to change.

I mean,

people were pissed off. Everyone knew there was a lot of censorship going on yeah so and we've talked about it i think facebook's numbers are they're not growing right i mean most people are using different platforms tiktok instagram facebook's if it was my company they had such a high percentage yeah i mean they such a high percentage, like, you know, Instagram, Facebook's.
If it was my company, they had such a high percentage.

Yeah.

I mean, they had such a high percentage, like, you know, they got 300 million users or something like they got 70 percent of the U.S. or something like that.

It's hard to grow on top of that base.

There's only one direction to go.

And with other platforms growing, you're losing attention.

I mean, it's all a battle for attention and time on site. And why they want time on site? Because they have ads and everything else that they're selling.
So if you're in a battle and a race for the mind share of attention and people spending time on the platform, you've got to continue to evolve that platform to what you're seeing and feeling and what's, again, acknowledging things that went a little too far. So we'll see.
I think it will have an impact. I mean, these are things that will have an impact on people, I think, coming back to the platform should it come to fruition the way it's laid out here, right? Next up here,'ve got toyota is exploring rockets just rock natural progression tacomas tundras and rockets uh no it's well evs batteries not rockets we're we're out with the outlet okay no gasoline going to electric.
Nah, we're going straight to rockets, baby. They announced a $7 billion investment in interstellar technologies, a Japanese startup developing orbital rockets.
Expand mobility beyond Earth and compete with companies like Elon Musk, SpaceX. The future of mobility shouldn't be limited to just Earth or just one car company, for that matter.
That's what Toyota stated at CES this past week. The startup that they bought conducted seven launches of its suborbital Momo, not FOMO, Momo, rockets, reaching space for the first time in 2019.
It says, plans include developing the Zero and Deca rocket lines to deliver satellites into orbit. Hey, they want to get in all that government money, right? That what this sounds like and you know they don't want bezos being the only one launching rockets in it i mean everyone's launching rockets we're like what are we launching where are we going are we all going to be riding in rockets soon because i'm a little confused yes it says toy Toyota's move into space technologies reflects

growing interest among automakers to

diversify into emerging

industries like space

exploration. Yeah, but

how many people are really going to space?

You hear about

a handful. Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos

and his friends? Yeah.

The investment is a strategic

step to compete in Japan's growing private

space market and on the

global stage with companies like

Thank you. and his friends.
Yeah. The investment is a strategic step to compete in Japan's growing private space market and on the global stage with companies like SpaceX.
I don't know if this is just PR. And like, they're obviously making real money.
I mean, $7 billion. This is my question.
Yeah. Because they have a quote here, right? We're exploring rockets too because the future of mobility shouldn't be limited to just Earth or one car company for that matter okay well then why are aeronautical and airplane companies making this like why is it our car companies why isn't boeing announcing this you know what i mean yeah exactly not that i'm sure boeing is working with companies like x and contracting and whatnot but it's just like are any of us looking at rockets as mobility in our near future? No.
Not in our lifetime, buddy. And even if it was, how many people are like, yeah, dude, let's go.
Where are we going? Mars? This is not a consumer news bit here. It's like business.
It's interesting, though. And it just shows you the influence of Elon, too,

with what he's doing with SpaceX and all that. They're just like, hey, I want to get in on that.
They don't want to lose the PR war either, the news cycle. Even when Elon's not talking about Tesla and EVs, SpaceX is in the news.
And so it's mindshare. Again, attention share, brand share.
and yeah, there's been real money on real technology and real rockets but this stuff is not going to impact probably for the next 20 years so it matters but this is this is yeah dude look at my prius we're building rockets now too. Somebody's sitting in a room somewhere going, look, we got all these articles written about the rockets.

You know?

That's the win right now.

Lots of zeros on that check they're writing.

Speaking of lots of zeros, massive tuna sold for $1.3 million at Japan auction.

$1.3 million.

I need to start fishing, man. I got to get that big rod out.
Got to start fishing. A 600-pound bluefin tuna sold for 1.3 million at Toyoso Market's first auction of 2025.
It was made by the Ondera Group, a Japanese company operating sushi restaurants and other businesses. That's a lot of sushi, man.
600 pounds of bluefin. That must be some expensive stuff.
Like, it better be tasty. I wouldn't mind having a little of that.
A little bite of that 1.3. I feel like I've tried it before somewhere.
I mean, I've had bluefin tuna, but I don't know if it's a special place. You know, like have Michelin star restaurants and it's definitely some fancy because my question is does the tuna taste better if it's 600 pounds versus 300 pounds? A $1.3 million tuna tastes better than a $600,000 tuna.
Would you know in a taste test? Is it like like wine, like line them up. $1,000 bottle.
$500 bottle. I would guarantee you people could taste the difference.
There's probably, you know what I mean? It's like you and I drinking coffee and there's people like, oh, you can't taste the difference in the beans. Am I going to be frowned upon for having rice and soy sauce on this? Yes.
You put wasabi on this, you're going to roll the rice out you. You're like, oh.
Is this like the equivalent of putting like a1 on your steak yeah yeah and i don't even do that i don't do that oh you do your a1 guy not not at a not at like ruth chris or something but because they won't give it to you yeah they'll be like get out of here get out of here i don't like to kill the like a little salt, pepper, some seasonings, different things on the outside of the steak, like the char. But then I don't really want anything else, you know.
Maybe butter. Like, I know that's the Ruth's Chris thing, but butter, patty on whatever.
It just depends on the cut and how it's prepared. I mean, you know, I get a, you know, cheap steakhouse, like old school.
Ryan's Quincy Steakhouse. You made a cheap country fried steak.
Yeah, I might want some A1. Give me some 57 on that.
Heinz 57, ketchup and mustard mixed together, whatever it is. Whatever it is.
Secret sauce. Yeah, whatever it is.
Every secret sauce is a combination of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Mixed with spices.
Just in different ratios. And vinegar.
It's like, oh oh here we have the Heinz 57 barbecue just has more more mustard than ketchup yeah exactly secret sauce what is no secret sauce here for the 1.3 million bluefin uh and in our automation story of the week chick-fil-A is moving to a factory that automates the squeezing of their lemons.

Saying they're going to save 10,000 hours of work from the workforce and a lot of fingers that get smashed up, squishing those things.

And Chris and I had a debate before the show, is it still considered fresh squeezed if it's not done by a human? I guess fresh still means it's a fresh squeezed lemon, no matter if it's a robot, a machine, or a human. But I mean, if you're not, the blood, sweat, and tears are squeezing those things with your hand.
You know? That human energy love isn't going into it. I will say Chick-fil-A's got some good lemonade now.
They have great lemonade. And we also said, I'm impressed it's not a concentrate.
I'm impressed that they're actually squeezing lemons. Yep.
Fresh lemons, water, and sugar. But even that diet lemonade is pretty good.
Splenda or whatever. I'm craving it now, dude.
i might need to make a run after this going to meet me and ryan's doctor be like hey brother let's make a quick stop at chick-fil-a he's gonna love that he's like you get the diet lemonade you're like you're really ordering sugar water right in front of me dude oh that you know we've already talked about how they pull the wool over your eyes you know chick-fil-A has fooled everybody and thinking that's actually the healthy choice for the kids.

Still french fries and fried chicken,

but, you know, it's Chick-fil-A, baby.

So it's got to be good.

Yeah, but we believe in God.

So, you know, they're like.

Yeah, doing God's work.

And I do love Chick-fil-A.

Me too.

I like the people there.

I like the brand.

Had their former CMO on the show

in our weekly interview episode. And good guy.
But no more squeezing the lemons by hand. Just evolution here, Chris.
Everything changes. The robot's coming.
It's coming. Take note.
Yes. Take note.
We're always fired up here on the show. Thank our sponsor, Exponent.
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That's the feed. Find them and you will thank me.
It's like you taste healthy. It tastes like, you know, we're talking about the natural lemon flavor.
Their flavors taste like the flavor you would think it would. It doesn't taste artificial.
That's all I like about them. It feels healthy.
It's a clean energy and all the best products that go into it and ingredients. Appreciate Exponent.
Appreciate them. That's all we got for this week.
Send our love to California. Let's get that shit taken care of.
Chris, any final thoughts? Have a great weekend. Take off the year to a great start and hit the ground running.
There we go. Hey, stick with those resolutions, whatever they are.
Just stick with goals. Get your goals together.
Let's make 2025 the best year yet. The best is yet to come on this show in life and in general.
Be positive. Stay safe.
Look out for one another. I appreciate Chris Hansen.
And I appreciate you for listening to this show in life and in general, be positive, stay safe, look out for one another. I appreciate Chris Hansen.
I appreciate you for listening to this show. We know you have choices.
Thank you for making us number one. RyanIsRight.com.
You'll find all the highlight clips, links to our sponsors and links to social media. We'll see you next time on Right About Now.
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