Welcome And Meet Gene Valentino

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City. And thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success in turning their side hustle into a main hustle. And we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my co-host. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Side Hustle City podcast. And today we have a special guest. And I know we haven't done a uh a podcast in a while, but I met uh Gene Valentino a while back at a little political event that we uh were both at. And Gene has an exceptional background, very interesting, very similar to what I've been into. Technology, politics, real estate, all the things you probably are interested in and want to be in. Well, we have an expert here to talk to you and uh explain a little bit about his background. So, Gene, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Thanks for having us, uh having me, Adam. It's really a really a joy to be here with you. You you've um you've had quite a footprint around the nation in different worlds. And the more I got to know you, the more I realized how our how our pasts align.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

That's right. That's right. Just uh seeing your background and uh knowing knowing where you're living at and some of the stuff we've talked about. I I got a ways to go, Gene. I need to catch up to you. I I need a plane and a helicopter and uh a big spread up there. You you it's almost like I think you've got a uh a ranch or something, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, the the home's on the water, and we don't have the helicopter, although EVTOL, electronic vertical takeoff and landing vehicles are coming.

Spotting Tech Waves Before They Break

SPEAKER_00 1:51

The whole concept of aviation's changing. And uh heads up, uh, once we get through web servers and farms and Elon Musk with satellite uh stations for visiting as well as web hosting and telephone calls and everything. Oh my God. The word he's he's leapfrogging over a lot of these entrepreneurs on the earth's surface that uh were trying to admonish him. He's now on his way to uh embarrassing all of them as he should. Many of them have stepped on him. From my point of view, I just enjoy tagging along to your point. Um uh I I I like like you, I like just uh get that surfboard and ride his wave. There's a lot of technology enhancements going on that you and I are either involved in or want to ride that I think are going to be the wave of the future in the next 10 years. Very exciting times.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

So just what you were talking about, I mean, it's it's one of those things where you see trends, right? You pay attention, you know what's going on. And I think a lot of people that I've met and that I've interviewed that are successful, they see trends before other people or they can connect the dots somehow. And and I think a lot of people go through life, unfortunately, just not paying attention uh the way they should. And I think if you just paid attention a little more and you jumped on these waves and you read a lot and you understood what was happening in the world, and that includes politics. A lot of people just want to stay out of politics and said, I don't care about politics. I just say politics cares about you, right? Uh, you got a war in Iran right now. Uh it's affecting oil prices, oil prices. Everything's made out of a barrel of oil. You know, these sunglasses, these glasses right here, made out of oil, the plastic, the metal, I uh not the metal, but the plastic. All a lot of stuff is made out of oil, the asphalt you drive your car on. The price barrel goes up, everything goes up, right? Transportation costs go up. So if something's not even if it's food, it's not made out of a barrel of oil, but you need to put it in a truck and you need to deliver it where it needs to go. And those costs trickle down. So if people don't understand politics, they're not paying attention. Uh it's hard to be an investor, it's hard to keep track of these things that are going on. It's hard to make money and get over the hump.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

You're you're so correct. And you know, uh, you said something that I think is key. Uh it's not necessarily the innovation, but it's the timing of it in the marketplace with other factors around you. Um, I'm not sure Elon Musk could be could have had a success with reusable uh rockets, uh re-entry rockets, uh maybe 10, 15 years ago. But today, as NASA kind of crumbled in the old bureaucracy uh in the last decade, uh uh uh it was clear that um it was clear that there was an opportunity for entrepreneurs to step up and take advantage of new innovations. And speaking of capitalism, look at what's happening in the stock market right now. They're begging for innovation, they're begging for in uh insight, in um uh opportunities. Now, you've got a crowd that came out of the Gen Z era that doesn't appreciate American history or innovation. They're looking for a freebie. And when I say tag along earlier to you, I didn't I don't mean in terms of riding the wave of uh someone else doing the heavy lifting for me. I'll pay my way. I'm talking about individuals who coming out of high school and college with some sort of uh transgender degree and not knowing where to go for a job. And that's what I'm I think is going to happen. I think we're gonna see a lot of innovation with people like uh Elon Musk. He's just the tip of the iceberg that are gonna present opportunities for you and me. I invested big time in the SpaceX program. The stock is down a little right now, but I think it's gonna rebound. Morgan Stanley reports something over $300 a share in uh SpaceX by the end of 2026 this year. Well, there's a uh there's a whole ripple effect you and I were talking about in the marketplace right now. Look what's happening with the chip manufacturers that are so that have crashed. I mean, the chips, uh even Taiwan, um uh uh even the the chips coming out of Taiwan and all the manufacturers and and and innovators over there are really in the red today as we speak. But I mean, my words, they're up three, four hundred percent since their inception, going back two or three years. So I'm not too anxious to throw in the towel just because a lot of greedy individuals in the stock market are trying to short an opportunity that just came to market, uh, it's caused a cr a terrible, a terrible um uh what's the word, um misleading uh in the marketplace. I think for the prudent investor who sees where the marketplace is going, uh go out and play a game of racquetball or go smoke your pipe somewhere and ignore the marketplace for six months, watch what happens by the end of the year. I think you're in for a very pleasant surprise.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

I think so. And I, you know, I mean, you can't really argue with it. I mean, look at the last several years and how things have gone. I'm a little worried about the AI boom, kind of feels like the dot-com thing, but being in the industry using AI, seeing how it's transformed my own business, how it's increased my productivity, I, you know, I just don't see it slowing down. I I think it just keeps getting better. Every month there seems to be an update to each one of these models. Uh, you know, they're getting smarter, uh, which scares a lot of people, I think. You know, the whole data center thing. And uh, I think uh, you know, in Terminator, Sarah Connor was trying to destroy the data centers that uh Skynet ran on, right? Yeah. Like that was that was her thing. And people see that kind of stuff. You know, you always in in all the stuff that happens in our government, you always want to bring up uh 1984, you know, the book. It there's a lot of parallels. So I think people try to find in popular culture things that uh that make sense for them, that they know about, that tie into all these things that are happening in our world. But at the end of the day, Gene, uh, you know, you got to worry about yourself. Government's not coming to save you. You know, this is this is my podcast, right? This is like the thing I talk about all the time is, you know, you gotta be worried about yourself. You gotta, you gotta, you know, make sure that you're paying attention because nobody else is gonna do that for you. Nobody's gonna make sure there's food on the table for your family. Uh, nobody's gonna help you keep your business successful. Um, you got to do that yourself. And I think that's something guys like you and I and a lot of other entrepreneurs learned early on in life, is that, hey, look, this is up to me to make things happen. There was things that maybe happened in our lives that taught us that. There were things that happened in popular culture and politics that made us realize these things. Early on in your life, if you go back, Gene, what were some of the what what led you into entrepreneurialism?

Early Work Ethic And First Real Estate

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Do you do you know what that like it was our moment, or were you just was it always in you?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well, my dad, I have to go back to the early 70s when I was in high school, and I think vividly about my father who I respected so much. Uh, I was the oldest of four children, and I had we weren't rich at all. I mean, no one handed us anything. He was a radio station broadcaster, if that tells you anything. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah. They didn't make much money. His advancement was becoming general manager of a radio station in Waterbury, Connecticut. Um, at the time, media, as we know it, was two or three radio stations in the in the county, um, two or three television stations in the state, and uh cable TV hadn't been formed yet. So you didn't have this uh wealth of uh input coming to you. Going to college meant a liberal arts undergrad type of uh environment that morphed into some specialty of trade in the four years of college. For me, it was business with a minor in journalism. Because during my college years, I ended up uh studying uh journalism because my dad uh became this was his jump, became a news correspondent for the Mutual News Radio Network in Washington, D.C. Oh interesting. All right, take a look at this ugly mugshot here, right? See what you see. Okay, so back then it was long hair down past my shoulder blades, and I had the Farmer John jeans as normal dress code to business class. The overalls, yeah. The overalls. And uh let me tell you, I was a different person back then. Liberal, no, I was conservative, but maybe more middle of the road than liberal. And um my transition, if you will, uh well, my awakening occurred when I saw my father switch from Democrat Party to the Republican Party when Ronald Reagan became the president. How could you not? And that was the beginning of my transformation to your first question. I began to see that it was important to produce and work and earn as a reward, not sit on the couch over there and eat my Kit Kats and expect you to pay my bills. Adult child support is what I call it. Adult child, it it was a transformation under its unto itself. We had a very um we were half Irish and half Italian in my family. So we came out of an old Italian work ethic uh of hard work, eight-hour days minimum, 10, 14-hour days were were not unusual. And um then as I came back out of college and thought I wanted to be, I was for a short while a television broadcaster at the local TV station. Oh um, when my dad, when I came out of college, because I had minored in journalism, and I'll be honest with you, there wasn't any money in it. And so I really realized, hmm, if I want all those things uh in my life, I best figure out a way of making more money. Nobody was just bringing it to you. Yeah, daddy had his hands full with four kids and I and mom too, and I wasn't about to impose on them for money. So I got the message early on. You want it, go work for it. And that's right. That and that message transcended through my life. Uh ended up uh owning a um a 20-unit apartment building complex with a a buddy of mine, and we made some money off that. And I said, hmm, that's better than selling advertising for a TV station. And then all of a sudden, I owned a few three-family houses. And then I said, Well, let me do that and let that be a passive income while I get to work and try to find out who I am. And I ended up going into uh insurance. Uh uh, insurance was a transition for me. It was a way of saying, hey, I'm gonna sell you that $600 a year homeowners policy, make the my portion of the 20% commission off that $600 a year, not much money, uh, and and build up this thing called a book of business over the years and um and build and build my wealth that way. And all of a sudden, I realized that, hey, I I'm not gonna make much money. I advanced in the insurance business and happened to like it, but I'm not gonna make much money working for the other guy who's probably gonna give the insurance business to his son and daughter. I better, I better go out and re- and I respect that he would do that. Let me uh let me um find some other windows to jump out of. So while I was at the insurance agency, uh the auto body shop down the street saying, Hey, we can't get in touch with you fast enough. We need to be able to know where you are so we can um bring some more business your way and give you some claims and and and have you give us some claims on auto body work. We became good friends. He says, I'm gonna put a two-way radio in your car for you. I said, What? I had a bigger car at the time. I said, Yeah, I need to be able to reach out and connect with you. Well, go ahead, put the two-way radio in. He builds this 75-foot antenna in my backyard. I'm up on top of a hill and 20 watts of power or something. Halfway through the project, he stops and says, Hey, I got a I can't do it. I said, Why? There's this new thing, 19 um 1983 to 85. He says, I've got a uh the United States government shut me off and took the frequency

The Cellular Lottery That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 16:10

from me. Oh. It turns out they've got this new thing coming out called cellular telephone in the same radio frequency spectrum. Cellular telephone, what's that? And so he turns me over to some guy out of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, who's putting these partnership groups together that's investing in a lottery process for cellular telephone. A lottery process? I didn't know that happened. The original FCC, after they did a beta test in Detroit, Chicago, a few key metropolitan areas, said, Look, we can't we can't keep going like this. We've got to disseminate it faster throughout the nation. And the only way to do it was to break the nation up into, for lack of a better word, franchise areas around the nation. Where there are thousands of franchise areas around the nation, the government set up, and I became part of a partnership of 20 people. And we invested, oh golly, maybe uh 1800 different times in 1,800 different cellular areas around the nation, franchise areas. And by the grace of God, on my birthday of all things, the federal government called us and said, Congratulations, you won the lottery. Oh. I said, Well, where do I go to cash in my ticket? Oh no, sir, you don't understand. You won the cellular telephone company franchise right, meaning you own the right to build and own your own cellular telephone company, and you've got 18 months to do it. Go find yourself $12 million and go figure out how to build a cellular telephone company. We had won the area in Central California, smack dab between Fresno to the south and Sacramento to the north. And we were Madeira, Merced, Chowchilla, Atwater, I could name the whole uh San Joaquin Valley, uh the Santa Clara mountain range. There I am on a horse with two other buddies with an old-fashioned GPS in my hand, trying to figure out where the best location is going to be for this tower at the time. And so we had 18 months to build a turn on the signal in RSA number 339 in Central California. We got it on seven days before our 18-month deadline expired. We sold it for um uh sold it 10 years later in 1996 for $125 million.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

In the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

That was real good money in the 90s, yeah. Yeah, that was that was a different game back then. But the government changed its mind. Its effort to bring opportunity to the citizens in a lot through a lottery process, excuse me, transformed into a bid process for as what Bernie Sanders would say the oligarchs. All the oligarchs out there got into this, and you average citizens didn't get a chance to be part of it. Well, at the time, there was an effort to let John Q and Jane Q public become part of a system of opportunity, an economic entrepreneurial system that frankly the government uh uh was supporting. Yeah, something that he would support because he believes in big government. So end of the story, real quick. They ended up um we ended up selling it uh to a firm that went bankrupt, obviously, but it made the the front page of the Wall Street Journal got absorbed by um got absorbed by Verizon in the uh acquisition process uh uh from that experience. But I walked away very happy. My father and my family thought I was crazy because at the time I took uh $20,000 of cash I had plus twenty thousand dollars my wife and I received at the at the wedding and uh in 1984. So we had 40,000 bucks. Even your wedding money. You took the wedding money and did it. You went all in. Yeah, my wife's in all the way with me. You pushed the chips to the middle of the table there, didn't you? We that was good observation. Uh you know, uh a lot of people brag when they got all this money. I'll tell you the the ugly side first. You got to know where people are coming from before you take a shot at where they are. That's why I take great offense with Bernie Sanders taking a shot at Elon Musk, who started in America with nothing. Yeah. That's the parallel. By the way, hold on to Elon Musk for a second. So 10 years later, what a story I could tell you, give you an hour on just cellular. We called ourselves Cellular One at the time. We were one of the first Cellular One operations, Cellular 2000 telephone company doing business as Cellular One in Central California. And um uh funny story, there was an attempt at a hostile takeover. Uh oh, really? Yeah, one of the of the 20 of us, uh Craig McCaw, McCaw cellular, um uh ends up trying to take out um uh some of our shareholders. So they almost succeeded. And um Ended up buying up about uh 25% of our company uh and um did not succeed at getting to a majority, but I became president of Cellular 2000 telephone company doing business as cellular one, and um my minority partner was Craig McCaw. Now we needed them because they were to the north of us, they were to the south of us, they were all around you, they had you surrounded us. So the RS232 software, which is what the software is for the handoff at the time, this roaming stuff. We don't talk much about it today because it's so integrated. But at the time, the handoff parameters were very interesting. Anyway, we um we had a partner called Craig McCall. One day during the time, I ended up meeting um uh a gentleman who says, I'm your new partner. And uh uh it turns out he's the CEO of a small company called ATT. Ah, interesting. I'm president of Cellular 2000 telephone company with the with the head of ATT as my minority partner.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Insane. Isn't that funny? You get you're you're you're riding around on a horse checking uh cellular signals one day and uh using your wedding money to invest in this company, and and now you're partnered with uh one of the one of one of the top CEOs in the country.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. That's correct. And and even um I think his name was Mr. White, great uh John White, I think was was his name. He um he ends up he ends up uh uh we both get bought out by Dobson Cellular, which was out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and um they overpaid, they paid $330 a pop, which equated to about $220 million plus dollars. I had a percentage of that. And um and uh so that became the seed money for Valentino Holdings.

From Telecom Exit To Politics And Media

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Uh and uh Valentino Holdings is now uh diversified into many things in the marketplace, but it it gives me the chance to to uh do things like this podcasts and and um uh I'm a contributor on Newsmax and Real America's Voice, uh get a chance to do it gave me the opportunity last year when Matt Gates, Congressman Matt Gaetz ran uh here in the Panhandle of Florida, uh left the position to consider uh Donald Trump's request for him to be the original attorney general uh before Pam Bondi. Uh the congressional seat became vacant. So I uh uh threw my hat in the ring. I was one of uh 10 Republicans. I lost. I was second or third in line out of ten. And the guy who won uh was um rightfully um Donald Trump's uh endorsed candidate, uh Mr. Jimmy Petronas, and uh uh who was the CFO of the state of Florida at the time uh under DeSantis.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Well, as we can see too, you don't run against uh Trump endorsed candidates. Yeah. I think he's got a 100% win rate right now uh in his second uh his second term here.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

I don't find fault with that. I just wish Donald Trump had the chance to meet me. I think he would have appreciated me more.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Well, I think he would have appreciated your background, your entrepreneurship, a lot of the stuff that you had done. I mean, you you know, being in early and and revolutionizing the the cellular industry, um, collector solutions is another thing. Uh, you've done some some work with NCR, uh National Cash Register, you know. Uh talk a little bit about that, too. That was a whole nother thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I know it parallels what you're doing, which is kind of the one of the things we have in common. Uh and I said, hold the thought on Elon Musk earlier for a reason.

Building Payment Software And Selling To NCR

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Elon Musk was to PayPal what Gene Valentino was to collector's solutions. Elon Musk was the payer's solution in PayPal. Gene Valentino is the collector's solution in payments, meaning I went after collect I went after tax collectors, big centralized accounts receivable billing systems like utility companies, water authorities, centralized billing where a lot of billing went out. And we wrote the software to connect to their inside management information software. So we were the payment engine. Uh uh, and you know, there was a day. First it started people using this item here. You're gonna what? Cell phone?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

I remember nobody wanted to even buy things online. You remember that? They were afraid to put their credit card in online. I mean, people are still stealing credit cards online, but you know, there was a time when it wasn't secure, people were afraid to do it, you know, and there was this whole thing where where you had to get over this this block that people had, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

So they first if it was the phone, now it's credit card. You expect me to put my credit card online? That's a crazy plot. I'm not giving you my credit card. So and these are our people, these are the conservatives that are saying this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

They're yeah, always the ones that are like, yeah, wait a minute. This is you know, the libertarians are the, you know, we we they're on our side, but they're they're always afraid of everything, it seems like.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

So we we ended up uh forming collector solutions, which parallels what you're doing, parallels at the time what Elon Musk was doing, and we built a payment engine system that was moving over three billion dollars a year in payment processing. We our contracts included the state of Missouri, the state of Illinois, and over 300 counties and utility authorities around the nation had the privilege of merging with a publicly traded company. And uh uh and then that merger is what brought us in touch, uh brought us into uh NCR, and and NCR ended up buying us out at the time. Uh today uh that that that becomes the base. Now you're talking about a guy who a few years earlier, 25, 30 years earlier, had his morning paperboy route, and after he did his morning paperboy route, he ended up doing uh mowing lawns. I'd make 20 to 40 to 50 dollars a week, which was a lot of money back then, and uh I would give half of it away because we were poor. I'd give half of it to my mother and father, and that help uh helped with the house um uh the operation of the household. And let me tell you, that was yeah, I felt kind of like I'm glad I'm doing this to help the family, but um, you know, no one gave me nothing. Uh no, no silver spoon.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, that taught you, that was foundational though. It taught you, uh, you know, it taught you that, you know, you you were part of that. You were part that that family was important. You had to sacrifice, right? Just the way they they sacrificed for you, you sacrifice for them, you know. You didn't have this uh this this idea that somehow your parents were going to just uh take care of you indefinitely. And then once your parents were done taking care of you, then you had somebody else, you know, everybody else was supposed to take care of you, right? You didn't have that mindset.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Well, it you know, I'm so convinced we are a product of where we came from and we take for granted the foundational things. That's right. So outside of the money thing that you you and I have in common and the business entrepreneurship, you and I also have a desire, uh a patriotic uh streak and have the have the desire to be serving our country. Well, we serve our country in different ways. We serve our country by trying to run for Congress, or we are part of a local uh con um uh commission uh or a county commission type of environment, or city or town selectmen. And um we all have different ways of contributing to the country. And I say to myself, well, where did that come from?

A Grandfather’s Promise To Serve

SPEAKER_00 30:48

And I think back to oh the lawn mowing days in early high school, uh eighth grade to early high school, and I think back to my grandfather, who um I remember the day my father took me down to the hospital, and it wasn't the nuance hospitals we have of healthcare today, uh, with all the creature features and services. We think back to the old institutional cinder block-looking buildings called hospitals. And I remember going into this hospital room, and my father brings me up to the bedside of my grandfather. And um I was a snot-nosed kid at the time who needed a good spanking once in a while. And uh and at that time, I was playing my Nintendo type of game. I was preoccupied doing something, and um, I wasn't paying much attention to the wellness of my grandfather. And my grandfather looks over the side of the bed at me and it says, Hey, yeah, are you listening to me? Yeah, yeah, Gramp, what? You make sure in your life you serve your country. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. No, no, no, he says, Are you listening? You make sure you serve your country. Okay, I will. You promise? I promise. You sure? I'm sure. Two days later he died. Oh. And I uh think back to that time, and I'm moved every time I think about it, uh, because it was it was transformative. That's right. It was the kick, it was the kick ass. How could you not? Yeah, I mean it was the kick ass I needed, you know. It made me realize that um uh working hard to help support your family and to be part of the family, the contributions to your family, not like these woke uh snot-nosed punks today who think they can camp out in mom and dad's house until they're 50 years old.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, it's kind of wild. It's it's crazy. And then eventually they they get kicked out. And I think a lot of times, too, if you think about it, um I think I think they believe that you know they live through this whole socialism environment in their house. Their parents may be well-to-do. Most of these DSA kids grow up with money, they're well educated, right? They went to to you know nice schools, they didn't grow up like we did, poor, right? Yeah. Uh, and you know, they they think they're gonna save everybody, but I think they grew up in socialism, right? They got what they wanted from their parents. We didn't, right? So we we couldn't wait to get out and go do get our lives in order. Uh, but they extend adolescence, right? And then once they get out of that, they get upset because they want that adult child support, right? Their parents say, look, we're done with you. And I think half the time, I think their parents want the government to take care of them. I think their parents know they kind of screwed up with them, they gave them too much, and now they're like, Yeah, give my kid uh UBI, give him universal basic income. Like, I don't want to support them anymore. I want, I want the government to support. So they kind of go out and vote for this stuff too, thinking that, you know, the government's gonna, you know, make up for their their um their shortcomings. Their shortcomings, yeah, and the fact that they didn't raise their kids right, you know, they gave them too much. And I think that's what you got. You got a whole generation of kids that are that are kind of like that, and they start this whole DSA thing. And um it's a big problem. And I think one of the reasons I do the podcast, and I, you know, I I I've run for office a couple of times, like you said, serve the country uh in the way you think you can, is I I hear too much from the left about what you can't do versus what you can do, right? Right. And uh as you know, the you know, the left believes in big government, the right is, you know, for sometimes I think they're for big government too, but uh but in general for less taxes, less government involvement and things, right? Uh but but the left is always for the bigger government, but they always take, right? They always they always have their little piece that they take out of that, right? Right. And there's so much fraud being uncovered and everything right now. And I I just want to wake people up that they're not coming to save you. Uh, you know, they're it's up to you, it's always been up to you. You understood that as a young person. Uh, you took advantage of some opportunities that were in front of you. I took advantage of opportunities that were in front of me. But the thing is, is you have to get out there. You have to be a person that someone wants to actually work with and talk to in network.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Time right there.

Elon Musk Backlash And The Anti Success Mindset

SPEAKER_00 35:42

What do you say about a guy like Elon Musk? A rags to rich story unto himself, who has to call time out on the nation, insert himself into the Donald Trump environment. He didn't need that job at Doge. I mean, come on. He but he said he was gonna call out uh Department of Energy, uh Department of Efficiency in government, Doge. Um so uh Department of Government Government efficiency, excuse me. Uh he turns around and puts a little team together and finds so much waste fraud and abuse that his Tesla operation is at risk because the mainstream left liberals, the main including the media, think that he's he's damaging the nation somehow. I'm on a I'm on a debate with a strong lefty who says that the Tesla stock at the time at $200 a share was swirling down the drain and was going to go out of business through the destruction of all of the Teslas and all the Tesla.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Think about the type of person you have to be to want a business to fail because you don't agree with the politics. Because you don't agree, cutting waste and fraud. Like that's that's absolutely insane. There's there's people that work and but at the same time, they claim to care about the worker. Well, the workers on the line on the factory floor, putting together.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

That worker just lost his job if you followed that logic.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah, it it's absolutely insane. The the the resentment they have for that man, uh, and and and nothing he has is keeping anyone else from from doing anything in their lives. Like, there's absolutely nothing that's stopping you from going out and and starting a small business or doing better for yourself. Like, just because Elon owns a bunch of stock in companies he created, he's not sitting on a bunch of cash that he can just hand to you, right? If he sells his stock, that sends a signal to the market that the owner of the company has lost faith in the company and everyone else sells the stock. Like they they they don't understand that's right. That it's not just cash on hand, it is just laying around. And these poor dealerships, that you just got people there trying to sell cars, and they're out here firebombing and protesting. And what is that accomplishing? Like, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

What does that tell you? The stock of the uh of Tesla at the time was 200 a share, it's now over $400 a share.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah, I mean, nobody, nobody and the funny thing is, is it used to be liberals that wanted to buy his cars, and just because of them, it made the other groups think, oh, well, hey, like if they hate him so much, maybe I'll buy a car, maybe I'll support him and go buy a car. It's just it it it never makes sense to me. Anything they really do, and it's all a grift, it's all um you it's it's all the same actors that go out there. And I mean, you honestly, you got you know, people like this, the these communist folks. Uh, there's a guy, this Roy Neville Singham guy, who apparently, you know, him and this code pink, his wife runs and all these other organizations, they they're big communists, Marxist people. They fund a lot of these programs. These people get paid to protest through those programs. And I don't know if they're just useful idiots. Do they know they're being paid by communist actors? Or like what's going on? I don't like I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

One thing that's scaring me is that um this communist socialist woman, I forgot her name, but she's appeared on the news recently. Shannon Bream on Fox News interviewed her recently.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Oh, yeah, oh, what a terrible interview she had. That was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

She's talking about open the borders, take them out of prisons, uh, eliminate ice, just uh totally do away with the Pentagon, uh, do away with uh the Senate in Congress, get rid of the Senate. And I'm looking at her, and you know what bothers me most? She's got red glasses on. She's got your glasses. So on Adam Kohler on your Kohler's show today, Adam. Taking them off. Take them off. I'm matching Adam Kohler. There you go. My old wire imms. There you go. I'm putting on my old wire rims. When I see her off the news, I might bring the red glasses back. You bring the red glasses back. Stuck with me with these. I hope these are okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Just imagine the mindset though. Like the mindset in someone like that, the envy and resentment and anger, like, where does all that come from? And and it's just like she spends all this time doing those things, and she could be starting a business, she could be doing something for herself, making her exact life better, but instead she chooses to bring everyone else down and promise things that are never gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Because in school, where the formation, where the formidable years, where confidence and self-worth are being uh nurtured, and the leaders, your guidance counselor, your teachers, the key people that stay with you 20 years later that you think about from those high school days, those nurturers are telling you you're inept, you're unable, milk the government and let them help you.

Why Socialism Fails And Schools Mislead

SPEAKER_00 41:14

And by the way, my check is going to be the same as your check each week, whether you work that old Italian heritage I talked about at the beginning of the show, whether you worked uh 14 hours a day or four hours a day, doesn't matter. You and I are getting the same check. Well, if I'm getting the same check as you, I'm not working 14 hours a day to that's why it fails every time. That's why it fails every time is the standard down, not up. That's right. I don't have uh a problem with Elon Musk becoming our first trillionaire. We saw in the news, how many was it, uh Adam? Over 4,000 of his employees became millionaires because of what he did on the welders, guys on the yeah, just regular people, engineers. I did that in my business. Yeah, I did that in my business. I brought a lot of people on with a little piece of the action on the stock in the payment processing business, and um, and they had the chance to buy in more if they wanted to. And they we paid, we created a retirement plan uh and maxed out the contributions on the employer side. That was really, we couldn't go any higher with the amount of uh contribution we gave. That's right, there's a limit 401k. But we we took very good uh care of the 27 people before we merged, and um I needed them to be looked at as above average because when you're going into the marketplace, you compete by differentiating. Well, how did Valentino keep 27 people together with um uh uh uh and we did so not only in in the compensation plan, but we did so in the um in the design of our product that stood apart from the competition. And that's where the inherent value was in the company. But this woman, whose name I can't remember just as well, uh Nobody will because she won't do anything important in her life. That's correct. These people, you hit the name. Remember the old days. I don't know if you ever read the book, but it was uh going back to the early 1900s. Horatio Alger wrote a book entitled Americans Gospel to Success. I encourage everybody to read it. It was the early days when the Industrial Revolution was coming in. It was um uh it was um gentrified, it was enhanced after post World War II. Uh and during those two phases in our American history, we witnessed an acceleration of economic. What was going on in the rest of the world? Socialism, control of government. I'm right, you're wrong, follow me. You don't know as much as me. Give me the power. Yeah. Let me control your life because I know better. Well, what our nation was founded. Remember the Boston Tea Party? We went nuts when the British government was trying to throw another tax on us. We went nuts saying, hey, you're not screw you, and you're overseas. We're on our own now. And um, the magic was trying to keep a nation together. Uh the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution first, the Civil War, and look what uh the little wars that followed. But during that Genesis, we became America. That's right. And we became an economic stronghold that the world envies. China, Russia, and other true oligarchs, Bernie, were communist social entities that were jealous of what wealth we had. And if the message on today's podcast, if there's no other message, the most important message is to the Gen Z crowd, the young crowd now voting, coming out of college with a worthless degree and trying to find a way of life, start with your patriotism to a nation that gave you an opportunity and learn to appreciate it. If your parents didn't help you understand that, please respect that what we're saying is true. And take the initiative, run with the baton in the race, and take it to the next level. You will find someone to then help springboard you into wealth, prosperity, and a comfort zone of self-worth so that then you become the messenger to spread that like Adam Kohler's doing on this on shows like this around the nation. Why is everybody now, these communists crossing over our borders, 400,000 illegals trying to take over our name? What did I say? 420 million illegals.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

And why would you say America is the worst place on earth, but at the same time want open borders so people can come here for opportunity? It's always the hypocrisy that gets me. Like I don't understand it. It's it's well, if just shut the borders off. If if they're so if America's so bad, why would you want all these people to come here? If it's if it's a terrible place, it's rooted in racism and and uh capitalism's so evil and all this other nonsense they spout off, but you want open borders? Like, I I don't get it. I don't get it. It's it's crazy to me. And and I think it it's it's it's you know, at the end of the day, it's about you, right? The everything is about them. I don't I don't think they're actually fighting for the worker or whatever it is, it's about them and them feeling something, right? They want to feel like they're contributing. Like you said, you have to contribute to America. The these are the DSA people are people who uh come from money and a lot of they've done studies, right? These are a lot of these people are well educated, they come from money, or um, you know, they have a a bunch of education and something that you know they're working at Starbucks now with a with a master's degree in sociology or something, right? So they they want to contribute to society, they want to be seen as a hero, but the best way to do that, in my opinion, is start a business, help people pay their bills, create jobs, uh, you know, encourage other people to do that same thing, build value like you did. You you built businesses, you you had people uh just like Elon Musk does. He's created 4,000-something millionaires uh when his when his stock went public. You know, I see a lot more value in that than I do standing in front of a podium every weekend uh at the library and complaining to a bunch of people that America's the worst place on earth and no matter what you do, you can't get ahead. The teachers are teaching kids that, which is crazy to me because you're supposed to be the one that encourages them to do better in life, but you're pushing the Marxism and the critical race theory, which is all based in critical theory, which is what Karl Marx believed in. Um, you're you're pushing this stuff on these kids. You're supposed to be encouraging them that America is a great place. You're supposed to be making them more patriotic, you're supposed to be pushing them out the door with the skills and the talents they need to become uh a productive citizen, not an activist. And it's sad, but it looks like a lot of our public schools in these blue cities are creating activists. And it's funny, uh, our board of education just met the other day and they want to increase the earnings tax in the city of Cincinnati almost another 1%. They want to push us above all the other cities in Ohio now to have the highest earnings tax because they lost their COVID money. Remember all that COVID relief money that the schools were getting? And what did they do? They took it, they added more administrators, they created more jobs, more bureaucracy. Now they don't want to let those people go because they're out of money. They're out of almost like $90 million a year now because they got they lost their COVID money. Well, they don't want to do that because all those teachers are voters, right? Every time they create a job in the city, they create another voter, right? So so now they're they're putting it on the taxpayer. Now the taxpayer has to pay for a school system with a 19% college readiness rate, Gene. 19%. Wow. They're not pushing these kids to be better. It's almost like a it's like a um a pipeline to prison, is what the public schools are, and they're asking you to pay for it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

You know who needs to educate them and set them straight? Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres. Yeah, I could name a whole bunch more. David Longoria, George Clooney. How about how about all those folks? Why don't we get them to come back and tell them how great America is? Because clearly, wherever they are now, they're not enjoying it as much. And they're gonna realize very shortly this is the bastion, this is the shelter, this is where they're gonna find uh safe harbor from a lot of the craziness going on in the world.

Foreign Policy Anxiety And Cultural Drift

SPEAKER_00 50:45

And um uh, you know, I I'm not surprised. Here we are in Iran trying to save the oil issue over there, only to find out we're not using any of the oil directly. Uh and um the European uh allies of ours, allies in quotes, didn't participate at all at helping us with this Iranian conflict. Now people are mad at Trump because he hasn't moved faster. What the hell's wrong with everybody? It's not our war. Um if we're gonna if we're gonna go finish off Iran, let's do it with certainty with allies around us. If you can't even get Spain to let us fly over the airspace and fuel up there, and here we have air bases in Rhoda that we should probably then Pete Heggseth is gonna make a decision on possibly pulling out of. Uh, we have um a nation we have nations over there who are no better than the children that we're complaining about in our own homes. Yeah. Here in the United States. What's the difference? Yeah. This isn't about Donald Trump anymore, folks. This is about a culture of bad behavior and misinformation that's affecting not only the people in your home and in the neighborhood, but affecting nations. Go over to Great Britain right now and and tell me if you like the Islamic jihad trying to take control of the city. I mean, uh they're in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah, well, and you look at it, look at all the European people that came to America during the World Cup. And and I watch videos. Now they're crying because these are their last days in America and they have to go back to uh, you know, the the the socialist utopia that they all probably voted for. And they don't want to. You know, they like the big grocery stores, they like having all this excess and all this stuff that America has, you know, the wealth that we have, uh, you know, in a in the apparent worst place in the world, right? Like we, according to the people who grow up here, worst place in the world. But the people that come here, they see opportunity, right? I want a trade program, Gene. I want a trade program. I want to send all the people who think America is the worst place on earth and it's it's evil and all this bad stuff. I want to trade them to a country where there's people there that are looking for opportunity. There's entrepreneurs that want to come here and want to experience America and build things and make it a better place and send all the complainers and people who who who don't produce, all they produce is is uh negativity.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

That's what I got I got an interesting spin on that thought. Let's take the top six Islamic daycare centers in Minnesota that have um that have fraudulently been exposed. Thank you, Elon Musk, again, for starting the initiative. But it was uh Nick uh Nick Shirley, uh, who really independent journalist who did the hard work. Let's take the top six Islamic daycare centers that have no people in them, find the money related to that fraud, and go buy Greenland. We wouldn't have to raise any more money to buy Greenland. We could do it with the fraud money we just uncovered and buy Greenland. Now, Greenland, you may like that idea because that's gonna tell you just how overlooked you've been, and maybe we'll give you more attention than these daycare centers.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

That's right. That's right. What do you got to you you there's 50,000 people you have to buy it off of? I mean, that's that's you know, that's the entire population of Greenland.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

I'm sure if you give them afforded with the fraud on these daycare centers, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

Hey, you you create 50,000 uh millionaires in Greenland, all of a sudden, you know, I think I think the negotiation gets a little easier.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Well, Gene, I really appreciate it, man. You've been you've been awesome. Is there anything you want to leave the people with? Uh young entrepreneur, you know, they're out there, they they don't know where to start. Um, you know, they they're they're they're listening to all this negativity, you know, they see that there's a war, there's all this fraud, they feel down and out right now. You know, what do you tell them? Uh you know, none of this is new, right, Gene? I mean, it's been going on for a while. It's just it just gets repackaged and sold to people in a different way every time and on a different type of platform. Uh what do you tell them, young people who are out there that want to become something, they want to do something more with their lives, they want more out of life. What do you

Liberty Freedom And Learning Citizenship

SPEAKER_01 55:17

tell them?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Well, Brian Kilmead, a Fox commentator, um, uh, was in Pensacola recently. Maureen and I had the chance to watch him live at the local Sanger Theater. And uh I'm so glad you ended on this question because it really does tie into America. And to answer your question specifically, the the turmoil we're feeling, the anxiety we're feeling, the PTSD issues we're feeling. It didn't just happen today. What do you think you're special? We've had tr stress and turmoil going back through the centuries. We've had issues in the early American Revolution, were social leaving Britain, uh people lying about their age. They weren't 18, but at 16 years of age, they were looking to join the revolution to transform this nation into what it is today. That didn't just happen. They believed in something. They've they felt the urgency to protect a nation that was less structured than it is now. They believed in a concept of liberty and freedom. And if we believe in just those two things that you the the question is perfect, Adam. If we believe in liberty and freedom, then we believe in the future, and there will likely be a 500th anniversary celebration of this nation that I'll look forward to, but not from here. We will be able to see 500 years of an entity in place that outlasts us. Think about it. Every other nation in the world is about me. I know better than you, follow me. We have a faith-based nation formed out of g with God in mind. And God is the leader. Our constitution is the roadmap, but our leader is the Lord. And we have the ability to take our nation into generational change because the structure we're working in called our constitution is elastic enough to make changes for future changes. Changes in transportation, changes in communication, can changes in arts, culture, and entertainment, changes in technology, automation, and uh the economy. Things are going to change. That's why we have what, twenty-seven amendments to a constitution. Amendments are are elements of change. There could be another twenty-seven changes in the Constitution uh in the next 250 years. So be it. The changes will reflect the need to protect ourselves from things uh that exacerbate uh bad behavior, like open borders, like a definition of what a citizen is. The Save America Act, we didn't regret, regrettably, we didn't get a chance to talk about, but the Save America Act before Congress right now, Donald Trump's right. Uh certain members of Congress are right. That needs to pass immediately. Thank you, Senator Rick Scott from Florida, for pushing so hard Donald Trump's initiative on the Save America Act because photo ID. It's so simple. I I gotta I gotta show photo ID to go into the gym. Uh I mean, why why wouldn't I show photo ID to vote? But before we tie a picture to the ID, what's the criteria for being a citizen? 100,000 Chinese slipping in over the border, so the having babies jumping off a plane and having yeah. Now we've got a deep state conspiracy. China thinks in terms of uh uh centuries, they don't think in terms of four-year elections. Right, they got fifty-year plans. They got a 50-year plan. So these children, some of which had just been born in the United States, have dual citizenship in the from China's point of view, and are gonna be future citizens of the United States. Wait a minute. Does that citizen have the chance to become president of the United States? Under the Constitution, it does. That's right. You want a Chinese communist?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Well, where do their loyalties lie? A lot of these people that are getting elected to these lower level positions, the Mamdanis of the world, uh, you know, he was just uh, you know, he was just naturalized eight years ago. And and you could tell he's still got his loyalties to uh to where he's from, from Uganda or uh India or uh you know, this this global third world that uh somehow their that mentality has now taken over the Democrat Party. And um, you know, those bad ideas that made those countries fail are somehow becoming our problems now.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Madam uh my teacher, Mrs. Lovejoy, in seventh grade, talked about the uh preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution called the Bill of Rights. If you know what all those things are, then I'll probably consider you a good citizen. If you don't know what I just said, do what my grandfather said. You serve your country, you get back on the playing field and learn about the preamble of the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, the Bill of Rights. Tell me you've learned the history of where America's come from. That's a citizen who should be entitled to vote, not someone born here because your mommy was smart enough to drag you over the border to give birth here. That's right. But then radicalize you at the same time. Yeah. I don't think that's fair to you and me who've served all our lives contributing to a nation that has a certain standard and principle. And now this new generation wants you to be able to sit on the couch and earn the same amount of m as money as me. That's great. Hey, let me tell you the where it's gotta be. He gets a free ride. He gets no taxes at all because I'm looking at the thousands of people he just made rich. That's right. Those are the people who are likely to hire you in the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

It's not gonna be one of these Democrat socialists unless it's for their uh, you know, they need a uh a person for their political uh party or whatever that uh some communist in China is sending them money to run through some kind of pack. Yeah, that's the only job they're gonna give you. An activist job.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

That's correct. But failure to defend the rights of other people may someday result in your rights not being defended. Get to work, make this nation a better nation, and serve your country any way you see fit. Adam and I did it. I hope you do it too. Yep, Gene. That's my message.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

That's amazing. And I love it. And uh, this has been a great talk, and I think we should start a political podcast together or something, because uh we could go on on these topics forever and ever, and there's no lack of content. Every single day, there's something new coming out that we could talk about. Uh, but Gene, I really appreciate

Where To Find Gene And Invest

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

it. Hopefully, people you know take this to heart. Uh, they can look you up. Uh, give them some some URLs or uh if they want to reach you on LinkedIn or whatever. I I think you know, uh if so you've got a fund that's open right now for accredited investors. Uh you're investing in hotels around Florida and other places. So give us some links so we can go to.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Okay, so um, well, uh this this this episode um uh Adam gives me, and it becomes one of my weekly episodes on Gene Valentino's Grassroots Truthcast. You can get to me through uh simple gene www.genvalentino.com or grassroots truthcast.com, all one word. And when you get there, you're gonna be asked to subscribe. Please subscribe. Uh we don't do anything with your list and names, we don't resell them. It's strictly personal for our podcasts, and weekly we push episodes out like this. Um I have three different um uh platforms in Grassroots Truthcast. One is these episodes, the other is my network TV um uh commentary that I do on Newsmax and um Real America's Voice. And the third are radio uh stations uh around the country that come on, have me on on Friday mornings. We do a 15-minute stit. I capture them and we put them on the on the so there's plenty of material there to to to draw from for um which which will have of interest to you. And by the way, it's also got a comment section and commentary section. I expect your input. I'd like to have your email uh commentary, your comments and criticisms of the show or any particular issues on the show of the day. And and um uh and and we go from there. And then and then the other thing uh Adam mentioned is um one of our uh one of our entities in the Valentino Holdings uh suite of business businesses is um Trifecta Opportunity Capital, LLC. Uh just go to Trifecta Opportunity Capital uh on Google and it'll get you the link. And what we do is we have a um a uh 506C capital fund. Uh it's a hedge fund that we use on Wall Street to uh raise the equity capital necessary for your involvement and participation with me in uh various Marriott and Hilton hotels. Uh this is the equity portion. You got the debt portion, you got the equity portion. Some of these hotels require $500,000 or $2 million to get into as an equity player. Most people can't do that. So if you want to come in for something less than $500,000, you can do so in our equity fund. We build up a certain block of cash. Your money earns interest while it sits there. And then when we flip it, we drop it into a hotel, it flips into now equity in a hotel project. We've got several around the nation right now: Jacksonville, Florida, Southport, North Carolina, uh Woodstock, uh, Georgia. Uh oh, brother, I could name a bunch more. Um look. Yeah. You've got a lot of you got a lot going on, Gene.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Yeah. I and there's opportunities. Like you continue to create opportunities for other people. I mean, it's not easy to put one of these things together. No. And to find the right property, find the right location, and and I mean, you're doing all the hard work.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

Well, credibility is all we have, so you have to surround yourself with good actors that can really take the ball and run with it, build a good hotel. And it's not only me and the investors, but let me tell you, Hilton and uh Marriott will be watching it as well to make sure uh it's done to standard. Otherwise, you're gonna be on the outside looking in. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Well, Gene, I appreciate your time today. You've been uh very informative uh as I thought you would be. Uh, you're an inspiration for a lot of young people and people that are just interested in in doing things. I mean, the crazy thing about your background, my background, a lot of people that I interview is uh you don't just stick with one thing. You're all over. Like you're all over the opportunities come and you know that you got to jump on them. I mean, it doesn't matter the industry. Uh, you know, you go from this to this to this, and you're doing five things at once, you know, and you get addicted to it over time.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Yeah, but when we get to folks like your age and mine, we do it with a sense of um certainty and um our uh uh analysis, we make sure we're not hopscotching, we do it with a sense of deliberance so that's right, we're not wasting our time and money. That's right. You gotta be smart with it. Take risk, but take calculated risk. Correct. All right, Gene.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

What a pleasure being with you today, Adam. I I look forward to doing this again in the future. Oh, we

Facebook Community And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

will.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:36

Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests. Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, Side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories, and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there, and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.