227: Is Pretty Privilege REAL in IT?, US H-1B Visa Crackdown, In-Person Interviews Return?

ep 223
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[00:00:00] They scheming I was about to say. Mm-mm Who's tryna get at me? Dog. Dog.

[00:00:20] Now watching The Tesla World Talk hosted by AC and Silas Shorty. Thank you. Bye bye then. I don't think Josh's is gonna be like, Josh wake up in the morning- I, I'm sorry, but Zelius is so funny. He wake up in the morning, say something, "Good morning." That's gonna be his good morning. Um, welcome back everybody to another episode of the .

[00:00:48] I'm your ho- TechTual Talk. I'm your host HD. And we got Cybershortieee in the house. And, and I'm Cybershortieee. And, um, appreciate y'all for tuning in with us today. We got a good show for y'all [00:01:00] today. And matter of fact, I know there's one thing that I forgot to do, so let me... But yeah, we got a good show for y'all today.

[00:01:05] Let me actually go to these talking points and turn them on real quick. Let me see this over here. All right, so couple of major talking points we got about is, like, are you doing good at work? Flock is back with more surveillance news, and I think they did some cuts. The H-1B problem, corporate advice, Open AI safety researchers were fired, and they're ringing an alarm.

[00:01:29] But first, if you are still here with us right now, please subscribe and hit all- Mm ... on the notification bell so you can be notified when we're dropping everything. Now, the first thing I actually wanted to talk about is how are you sure you're doing good at work? And I feel like this is a good intro topic.

[00:01:47] This is actually a really, really great topic. Um, a couple of reasons why you know you're doing good at work, if you're doing better than everyone else. If you have access to your numbers and everyone else's numbers, and your numbers are better than [00:02:00] everyone else's numbers, that might be a clear indication that you might be performing.

[00:02:05] Not necessarily, just because you're doing better than everybody on the team doesn't necessarily mean you're doing well. Your team could also just kind of suck, but it, it is a good feeling to know that you may be kind of soaring a bit higher than folks. Um, also having those, those check-ins and those checkpoints with your leader, and also asking them their opinion of how your performance is, whether that is against folks that are, um, on your team or folks that are in your organization.

[00:02:34] 'Cause your manager will have more visibility, and should in most times and cases have more visibility than you may have, um, just with the access to the reports that you have. They might be able to see things on a larger scale and say, "Well, yeah, you're excelling. Uh, top, you're a top performer out of everyone in your role," or something along those lines.

[00:02:53] Um- Yeah ... but it's- It's funny, you know- It's a, it's a, it's a forced conversation ... Yeah. Ironically, ironically that I brought that up to you 'cause I [00:03:00] remember you was telling me something like that. Yeah. And I put this topic on here because of this is for people that may not have necessarily metrics and numbers already to go by.

[00:03:09] Mm-hmm. Right? I was, I was telling you at the beginning of the show about one of the women downstairs that they fired her, of course, and so that means she wasn't laid off, or maybe they laid her off, I don't know. But one, they said they fired her for performance reasons, and like I said, I was asking a coworker about, "Well, what, what are these performance reasons?"

[00:03:28] And she said, "Well, this is what they said." But I was like, "Was she even trained correctly?" She said, "I, I don't think so." And I was like, "Well, did they let her know any of these anything?" She said, "Probably not." And so it got me in the mindset of saying- You gotta be proactive ... yes, if you are not sure if you're performing well, it's okay to ask your management, "Hey, how am I performing?"

[00:03:46] Yeah, and, and be direct too and ask, "Are there any comments, any questions, any concerns? Is there anything that you would like to see from me that I'm not doing? Are there any opportunities where I can stand out that you, could you keep me in [00:04:00] mind for those?" Like, you do have to go the extra- All leaders are not the same Number one.

[00:04:07] Your, your manager might be a better leader to someone else on your team just because their personalities mesh a bit more, and maybe your personalities don't mesh that well, but you can't let that be a deterrent in you understanding, like you said, how you're performing, what you need to do, where you need to make adjustments, where you need to pivot.

[00:04:23] Yeah. A- and since you said that, like, in this scenario too, I was also stating how that a lot of leaders don't have the EQ to be in leadership, and that the place that we record at was under different management at one time. So when everything switched, this person actually started pretty fast. And so, like I told you, I was always under the assumption that she was doing the same job as the other person, and she was like, "Nah, we had, like, different roles."

[00:04:47] Mm-hmm. And she was like, she was like, "Coming to think of it, it makes sense why sometimes she'd feel so confident in what she was doing." But she's like, "I wonder was that coming from up top, or did anybody help her?" And so I was saying, if you want to [00:05:00] fool-proof your way in, I'm not gonna say this is not gonna get you fired, because a lot of these at-will come states like Texas, they'll put that at-will in your offer letter to make you scared about, like, what type of ramifications they could face if they wrongfully terminate you.

[00:05:13] And so the onus is on you to email these things, say, "How am I performing? Let's set up my one-on-ones." Record these one-on-ones so you can talk about these things and press the issue. Because if... And also, whatever way they're measuring you, make sure it's fair. Mm-hmm. Or what... Or you could say, "Hey, the thing that I messed up on, is this something I should've l- knew in training or what?"

[00:05:34] Or was there even training? Like she told me, there wasn't any technically training that was documented that she completed. And so if you ask somebody, she was only here, what, two, three months. Yeah. And it's okay to advocate for a different viewpoint than what you were provided. When you have, like, your, um, annual reviews or your, your- Mm-hmm

[00:05:55] uh, what is it? Semi-annual? You have the- Quarterly reviews. Yeah. Annual reviews. Yeah. Like, [00:06:00] if you get some feedback and you feel like you have, um, documentation, evidence, or proof to refute what they're saying, like if they're saying, "You did not perform well," but you're like, "Yes, I did. I exceeded these," and you have the documentation to prove the impact to kinda back you up, then go in with your head held high because they may be missing that.

[00:06:17] Did you not ever share that with them? Were you holding onto that and then you gave it to them at the end and then hoped that they would realize your value at the end? So I think it's a, it's a slippery slope, you know? Yeah. And like, so- But that's why the checkpoints are important 'cause you're not supposed to be, it, you're not supposed to just get to the year-end and be confused on, or surprised, not even confused.

[00:06:41] I would say you're not supposed to be surprised about the outcome of your performance when it comes time to have a review because you should be having those checkpoints. So if, if you know that things have been going great in the conversations, then it should be a pretty decent But just because they're saying it's great doesn't actually mean it's great.

[00:06:59] Now that's a [00:07:00] different story. Because that's what I said, you have to figure out, like, okay, what are they measuring me off on? Is this tangible? Does it make sense? You have to have this stuff documented for your reasons. And also, I think it's cool when companies lay people off close to the holidays. Like she was telling her coworker that- You think it's cool?

[00:07:18] Cruel. Cruel, cruel. She was telling her coworker that sh- her family, they needed two incomes, so she needed that job. So a lot of times on this show, a lot of people feel like because of whatever we do in our professional lives, like we are like so far removed from them. Not far removed at all. And I'm just here to say, like in the day-to-day, like I definitely, I feel everybody who gets laid off, because it's not fun.

[00:07:43] Or whether it's laid off or it's fired or wrongfully fired or you feel like you weren't did the right way. And, and that's why sometimes if you're not getting it from your manager, having a mentor that can say, "Hey man, how the new job going?" "Oh, I'm doing good. This and this," and then they can ask probing questions to you about, "Oh, well, you [00:08:00] improved anything?

[00:08:00] You fixed anything? Or you messing up? Any complaints?" Like, they can talk to you in a way that sometimes you may not be comfortable with talking to your manager on to say- Facts ... "Okay, here's what you do." And that is the reason why people with mentors or coaches usurp people faster that don't have those things and that have never been taught those things.

[00:08:17] Because to be honest, being in corporate is a whole different animal, and you have to figure out how to kill the animal. That's what I say. I like having someone in my corner who can tell me like, "That's not enough. You need to be doing more." Um, because most folks would be like, "Oh, well, you're doing pretty good.

[00:08:34] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." But the having those people in your corner to tell you, "Th- these are the trends that I'm seeing, I think this might be something good for you to do," and you can actually trust their opinion and their feedback. I think it's important to have people in your life like that, especially when you are in a corporate world.

[00:08:50] Um, because people, especially people that are older than you, they may have more, um, what's the word? Wisdom? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for [00:09:00] sure. And, and so with us even on talking about this, it actually brings me into, we had like a couple TikToks on like corporate advice, and I'm like, let's go ahead and go into that, 'cause we're already talking about business stuff, what people should know, how to navigate a move in the lane.

[00:09:14] So let's, let's talk about it. Um, let's see. Where's the reaction scene? There we go. All right. Where's our Windows capture?

[00:09:25] She do me, she do you, she got the kind of loving, got the kind of loving. Remember that, the little dude in the Walmart was singing that song? Okay, I think the word is that ch-ch-ch-ch-ch

[00:09:40] Okay. It was, I think this woman is like, uh, now she's a director, and she was giving advice to people about working in corporate America, and I thought it was pretty cool. So there she is. Let's find the video that she's talking on. All right, it's almost three minutes, so let me change the [00:10:00] playback speed to, like, fast, and let's get it.

[00:10:03] Maybe two times. When it comes to careers, I will die on the hill that how you start is how you finish, and I just finished my first week at my new job as a director. So I just wanna share three things that I did really well this week that I think is gonna set me up for longer term success. Okay, first up, I made sure that I got to work every single day, at least 10 minutes early, not just the first day, and basically was arriving right before my boss got there, which I think is, like, one of the strongest ways to make a great impression.

[00:10:21] In fact, on the third day that my boss saw me, she's like, "Wow, you're kind of bright and early every day, aren't you?" And I was like, "Yes, I am." Um, because once again, you're building an impression, you're building a reputation, and, you know, you don't wanna overachieve too early 'cause then that becomes the standard or the bar.

[00:10:33] But do things that feel very attainable, and for me, showing up 10 minutes early felt like a good way to sort of make a great impression. Same thing on the back end. I was the last one to leave every day, which I do think part of that is, like, my private equity training. I think on the other hand, it's just good optics.

[00:10:43] Also, it's like it's your first week on the job. You, of all people, should not be leaving before anybody else because there should be more than enough things for you to learn, to understand, to get involved in, in terms of, like, just getting up to speed. So it's really small, but I do think it made a really strong impression with my team early on.

[00:10:56] The second- Okay, I'm gonna pause that because I think [00:11:00] this is excellent advice, especially for the people who are, like, on site or whatever. I like arriving early, but the last one to leave is a, is a bit much for me. It depends. I need to know more about that. Yeah. Like, are we talking about two hours later or what?

[00:11:18] What do you mean by that? But Um, honestly saying this is like, um, it's a small thing. She's not doing too much. Yeah. She's showing that she's present, she's showing that she's ready to succeed and maybe even get her boss's role maybe one day. And a lot of people don't do that. They come to a new job and start off doing the bare minimum.

[00:11:38] And I named this video, I was like, uh, I think she said, like, how you finish is how you start or whatever, but, like, about first impressions. And people don't realize, like, sometimes you never get a chance for a second impression. That part. So how somebody meets you means something. Or, or figuring out how people talking about you behind closed doors.

[00:11:56] And only sometimes the only thing they have of you is what they seen you doing [00:12:00] in the office. Mm-hmm. Or whatever. Like, I've seen how this things goes. I've lived out the scene of, um, like I said, you never finish Insecure, but for the people who finished Insecure, there was a scene where, um, Gail Bean, AKA Wanda on Snowfall, she was, like, an intern at the law firm Molly was working at, and Molly tried to tell her, "Hey, you should do X, Y, Z."

[00:12:23] She didn't wanna listen to Molly. She thought she was doing everything. And then they came to her about talking to her, and Molly didn't talk to her again, and she got reprimanded. But that's kind of what it reminds me of, of, like, not knowing how to move in a new space. But, uh, let's let her cook. One thing that I did that I feel like got me off to a good start is I did one-to-ones with everybody on the team.

[00:12:40] My team is relatively small, so it was not hard to, like, get everybody on my calendar. But I actually learned this in my first job out of undergrad when I worked in banking. I did this intentionally with all the commercial bankers that I sat on the same floor with, and I didn't think much of it at the time, but I remember sitting with one of my mentors, like, a year later and him telling me, "Alyssa, we never had an analyst come in and sit with all the commercial bankers one-to-one.

[00:12:58] You made such a great impression." [00:13:00] So I've always sat with that mentality, and once again, in this new role, I made sure to get 30 minutes on the calendar with everybody, and really these were just conversations for me to be like, "Who are you? What's your role? How can I support you?" And also just introducing myself.

[00:13:10] I think this is a great way for everybody on the team to get to know you and just to see you in a way that's, like, non-threatening and in a way where it almost comes across as collaboration. And then finally, starting out this week, I just took on the mentality of I just wanna learn as much as possible and get a lay of the land, and this is actually a principle that I learned in The 48 Laws of Power, which I know some people feel a way about that book, but I personally think it's a phenomenal book.

[00:13:27] And one of the rules or laws that it talks about is, like, you don't wanna change too much too quick, and maybe that's not the exact quote. Basically, um, the whole premise is when you come into a new organization, some people can come in with brute force trying to change everything. For me, I just really focused on getting to understand, like, what does everybody do here?

[00:13:41] How does everybody support each other? What are, like, the norms? How does my boss perceive work? Things like that, where it's like, yes, I have a director level role, so my entire job is to set the strategy, but at the same time, before you can set a strategy, you need to understand what has worked, what hasn't, and what are the overall goals of the company, the team, the business?

[00:13:56] And I just feel like by taking this approach, it came across as this girl is [00:14:00] really here to collaborate. She's definitely gonna make an impact, but she's not really necessarily coming in with a critical eye just trying to change everything all at once. Listen- I actually love the idea of- Hang on. We gotta, we gotta give her a daily Cybershortieee.

[00:14:13] Um, where is it? A- A- A- A- A- A- A- A- down. I think that it's so important to set up that time with your team members, no matter how big your team is, um, so that you can truly understand where everyone on the team, where their, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and where, how you can leverage them as teammates.

[00:14:36] Um, sometimes you do need to pull a teammate into a conversation, or you do need to have a conversation with a teamme- teammate prior to having a conversation with a customer, um, or whoever, you know, your, your role is centered on. Um, and it also allows them to understand more about you, your home life.

[00:14:54] It's just a personable connection, you know? Most of the times that's where folks tell you, like, "I got a wife, a [00:15:00] dog. Uh, we got a property here. We vacation here. We..." That's where you get to just learn the more human side of your teammates, and that definitely plays a thing. Like, you might be into Halloween and find out one of your teammates always decorate their house.

[00:15:14] It's crazy. So now y'all cool because of that, you know? Or you might find out y'all are into the same music, or y'all like the same concerts, or just small little things that kind of make it funner and cooler to engage with that person. Like, "I'm gonna remember Joe 'cause Joe likes this. I'm gonna remember Chris 'cause Chris bake cookies with his wife."

[00:15:35] Yeah, no, I like everything she said. I remember when I went from working help desk to being, working in the NOC It was my first time going to a role where I had scheduled one-on-ones- Mm ... with my manager. I had never had that before. And that's good because it sets you up for success. So even going back to our opening conversation, if your manager is not scheduling the one-on-ones- You-

[00:15:57] you be proactive and you schedule the one-on-ones. If your manager [00:16:00] is not scheduling the one-on-ones, they are expecting you to get them scheduled, and you to come to them with their, with the agenda for that conversation. I've had leaders that are different. I've had leaders where I'm like, "You know what?

[00:16:11] I ain't talked to them in about a month. I do need to put some time on their calendar." Or I've had leaders that are proactive who schedule them out, as they should, but you can't let how your manager chooses to manage the ta- the team dictate how you will allow yourself to be perceived. I don't, I would much rather reach out...

[00:16:29] If I haven't talked to my leader for three months, I would much rather be the one that reaches out and set the pace and the tone of that conversation than t- than them to reach out, because by the time they reach out, they got something else on their mind. "You know, I haven't talked to you in a while.

[00:16:43] Just wanted to see how you were doing." And it, it's just, it's a checkpoint for them because they realize that they have been disengaged. But when you're more proactive with it, that's letting them know, "Okay, she's serious. He's serious. They serious. They're not playing about me understanding what they're doing, their struggles, if they [00:17:00] need my assistance with things."

[00:17:01] 'Cause it's not always like, "I'm doing great in my role." It might be, "I got questions." It might be, "I'm missing this." It, you might need clarity. Yeah. And one of the big things she talked about is it was something... So I have a, a whole video where I was talking about how I went from working in the night shift, working in the SOC, to working day shift.

[00:17:20] And like- What did, what did, what did you prefer? Um, I prefer being in the days 'cause I was around more stakeholders, so I could get more visibility. More visibility, yeah. But the guy was telling me, um, that wouldn't work because... And I probably could find it. Let me see if I can find it on h- on here. But it's pretty much what I was telling him.

[00:17:38] It's a difference between me coming to work trying to make a good impact versus trying to, like, show up somebody. And I was like, my thing was never to show up anybody. It was to come in there, do good work, and show them about, um- Like what I know. Uh, let me see. And, and it's also, while you're looking that up, it's also important [00:18:00] to be a good teammate to other people.

[00:18:02] Like, you don't wanna be the person in the teams chat that other people are talking about or laughing at because you don't know how to be a decent human being. Or you bring a little jerk to the team, you bring a little jerk energy to the vibe. Like, people can immediate- Especially if you're a new apple.

[00:18:19] If you're a new apple to the team and folks are just kind of used to getting along pretty well and you come over here with some drama or a bad attitude, or the way you... You need to go through them chats and see the tone of the conversation and how people are talking to each other. Mm-hmm. And you need to follow that.

[00:18:36] Facts. And so I, I found a, a comment. Three months ago s- this guy said, "I believe this could backfire, brother. Management will notice you and put you in their good graces. However, good hardworking employees always get abused by management, and then your coworkers turn against you when you outshine them."

[00:18:53] And I said there's a difference between trying to step on toes versus making noise in the right way. And so I've always did this in a way where I've [00:19:00] never tried to put somebody down. And so what this would look like is when I work, when I were working night shift, I get to see a lot of gaps or visibility of stuff that's not caught during the days 'cause it might be busier.

[00:19:12] And so I'm only... I'm not saying, "Hey, these guys missed this," but I'm doing is, "Hey, I saw that this happened or this happened, or we don't have the visibility to see this." And I'm sending emails with my manager, the director, and CCing, like, their counterparts on there so they can just get all these emails and read them in the morning, which got their attention.

[00:19:29] I never was in a call and, and said, "Yeah, they don't know what they're talking about, but this is what we should do." That's when you're stepping on toes. And that's also leading with ego. Yeah. Like you know it all. Yeah, and then that's when you become a bad person to work with. Yeah. And people don't care about that.

[00:19:45] Even, and a lot of people could think they're in their right to kinda bring this competitive WWE style stuff to work. Meanwhile, you are playing yourself 'cause now these people are like, "I don't never wanna work with this guy nowhere else again." And when [00:20:00] you are Black and you work in tech, and then let's even squeeze it down to security, the margin for error is like this.

[00:20:07] All of us pretty much know each other. So you making enemies is making it worse on you. Let, uh, I put it like this, if you give people enough- Especially making enemies just to make them ... yeah, if you give people enough rope, they'll hang their self with it. You don't have to do nothing. Management will realize through the KPIs and metrics they not doing what they supposed to do based on the times they work on shift, then they're getting over.

[00:20:29] You don't have to showcase none of that. All you can do is do your job, do it well, make improvements, and make changes. So I definitely like that. I like, like I said, she schedules all the one-on-ones. The people like that because it's like, "Oh, this the first time a higher-up person took interest in talking to me."

[00:20:44] Sometimes nobody ever did that. And back to what we was talking about, I'm probably 50% sure that they didn't have no bi-weekly or monthly one-on-one set for that employee they let go. I actually think monthly is too long. [00:21:00] It depends on the company. Monthly is, that's a long time if you have questions, comments, or concerns.

[00:21:04] The, but the, well, the key word is you're saying, "if," so this is, we're, we're talking about a person that may not know. Yeah, true. So we're saying that, that, that in this situation, the management should lead, "Hey, we're gonna talk once a month." And so I'm under the assumption for a fact that didn't happen because this person wouldn't have been let go had you said in two weeks- Yeah

[00:21:20] "Hey, you-" Or ne- the week after. They would say- If, if, 'cause usually when you start, typically in my experience, you do meet with your manager more and then they might push you out a bit more. Like, weekly or bi-weekly when you first starting, and then by the time you hit- Mm-hmm ... three to six months it might be, like you said, bi-weekly or monthly.

[00:21:39] Yeah. But you do need those quick checkpoints when you're first starting out so quickly you can be turned around if you need to be turned around. Yeah. Facts. And like I said, they, a lot of people don't know that. And this person, I don't wanna say y'all person, this person was not a Black woman. It was a White woman.

[00:21:54] Also, one of the things that I thought about what, what the other woman brought up, she was like, [00:22:00] she was like, "Honestly, I don't know if she fit the aesthetic they're looking for." She was like, "Typically they hire younger looking women, whether Black, White, Brown, green, purple," and this woman wasn't. You could tell she was older.

[00:22:11] But I mean, she wasn't a, she wasn't an ugly looking lady or whatever. So but she was really nice. She, uh, I think a lot of people liked interacting with her, so it was, uh, interesting. But that gives me back into pretty privilege. The woman that we were reacting to, she, um, she was a nice looking woman.

[00:22:25] That's what I'll say. She was a nice looking woman. So that's the other thing, like I don't know when the panel's coming, guys. Y'all let me know when y'all want the panel on does pretty privilege work. The 40 years is over. 'Cause that's an interesting... I guess we could do pretty and handsome privilege.

[00:22:39] November. November. 'Cause I wonder, I'm gonna do the stats on that, like how more inclined would people be... 'Cause I see, have you ever seen like on Facebook when like a woman, like let's say it's a thick woman selling a car, and the person say, "I'm on my way now to come buy a car." Mind you, the person could be- The car could be

[00:22:57] the, no, listen, the salesperson could be in Michigan and the person staying in [00:23:00] Mississippi. That's commenting, yeah. And I'm like, "Be real." But I wanna know like how inclined somebody is to buy a car from a, a, an attractive person versus a person that's not conventionally attractive. Sorry. Your ear itching?

[00:23:16] Somebody talking about me. Ain't that what that mean? I don't know. That's what it mean. When your hand itching, you finna get somebody, some money. If your ear itching- Oh ... somebody talking about you. So, um, I thought that was good. And then the next one that just piggybacks right on that so I don't mess up the flow is, I believe it was like a

[00:23:33] It was a, um, video where she was talking about what she would tell somebody if, um, if she w- or either she would tell herself after coming out of corporate. Where is it? If I had a little sister who was starting a new job, I would tell her these key things. Just because they go to work looking any kind of way, that does not mean that you can also do that.

[00:23:56] You can't. Put yourself together. It matters. Do- Okay, we got a [00:24:00] hold on. Let's stop right there Let's give her some gunshots for that one real quick. What it said?

[00:24:06] That's the one That is the one and the two and the three and the four and the five and the six. Do you remember last year we did the episode where I said I can tell- Yes ... who working the costume and who don't? Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. They be wearing pajama pants, bonnets. Bonnets. Ooh, the bonnets. You can, you can tell.

[00:24:23] So it's like, hey, a- and that, and this is, um, kind of under the same thing. It's You know, you always see these different contentious back-and-forth arguments on TikTok, whatever, and they always say, "Oh, well, white people can do it." Da, da, da. It's like, first of all, we are talking about our standards, not theirs.

[00:24:42] Yeah. Back in the, the '40s, '50s, and '60s, people wore their suits. The women was- No, no peo- ... covered up, dressed nice. Even in the 2000s, we was wearing business casual out. To the club. You know what I mean? Yes, she was. Yes. We was wearing long button-downs- Yes ... jeans and- But, but it was always a good thing- Mm-hmm

[00:24:56] and it still is a good thing for you to dress up and, [00:25:00] and showcase what that looks like. What... To me, dressing... When I was in, um, middle school, my principal used to, uh, have, uh, Dress for Success Fridays, and the people used to wear their Easter Sunday. I mean, we used to look forward to dressing up, putting on these heels we can't walk in, but, like, get excited about looking good.

[00:25:20] And there's nothing wrong with being, um, in business casual. What's the- But- What's above, what's above business casual? Business attire? Yeah. There's nothing wrong with being in business attire at all. But you gotta think about it, though. I mean, a lot of people don't know what that look like. A lot of people's environments, that's what all people wear.

[00:25:39] But I feel like it stopped with our generation. I don't think so. I think so. 'Cause you think about it, we don't run the world yet. We don't. So you still have the people in suits. Like, we, we know how to dress for occasion. But I'm saying we know how because it was entrained in a lot of us growing up. Like, we knew...

[00:25:57] It, it used to be if you, if you wouldn't wear it to church, [00:26:00] don't wear it to work. But see, I like you say that, but I'm gonna keep it a bean. But, but people wear a lot of things to church these days. Man, you be seeing all kinds- The lines are blurred ... bodycon dresses- Yes ... everything, so. Yes. It, i- it's a lot.

[00:26:12] Everything is a lot. So, uh, I just like that she said that because, but she, 'cause you can't. Like, if I never... Like, well, when I worked night shift, I was a little bit different when I would come into the office, but honestly, any time after that, I was always like... 'Cause Jazell always joke with me, she's like, "I'll get some new clothes."

[00:26:29] These things, like, you finna go to work. I was like, "Yeah, 'cause I never know what I'ma do, so this is perfect for my age. I'm 34. I'm not, like, I ain't young. I'm not a, a spring chicken." So, but I did think that was, um, I thought she liked that. Let's, let's let her eat now. Do not get drunk at happy hours. These people are not your friends, and do not tell those people your business.

[00:26:49] When they ask you, "How was your weekend?" I don't care if you flew to the south of France. You say, "Good. I didn't do much. How was yours?" You do need to show your face, and you have no reason not to show your face. I [00:27:00] don't even drink, and I still show my face at a happy hour and sip my Diet Coke. Make friend- I was telling- I feel like there's a curse and a blessing-

[00:27:07] with drinking and not drinking, because if you don't drink, people won't feel- They think you prude ... comfortable. Exactly. They won't, they'll feel like, "Oh, you, she doesn't know how to loosen up," or, "They don't know how to loosen up. They don't know how to have a good time." You get too drunk, they gonna be judging you, of course.

[00:27:19] Yeah, 'cause I would tell you, I have a- I got a coworker and he got the completion for the protection. He be turnt. He, he, he be getting to where you gotta carry him out sometimes. Oh, he having, he f- he having a good time for a long time. He be on his, uh, I'm not even gonna say it on a, on a production. Tell me later.

[00:27:37] U-I-G-I. Just put the ... Figure it out. But, um

[00:27:43] Also, when she was talking about the drinking. So go to the happy hour Go to the happy hours Get a cranberry and drink that. Or get ginger ale. All you gotta do is get some stuff that masquerade like you're drinking liquor And don't be judgy. When them people, them [00:28:00] white people doing all that stuff they be doing, oh yeah, oh yeah, you wildin'.

[00:28:03] And, and keep it moving. I don't think it's anything wrong with having a drink, but I think when you start having two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 drinks, that's where the problem comes in. But if you're not a big drinker, then I think that there's nothing wrong with you staying away from having that drink in that environment because your nerves might be a little bit more elevated.

[00:28:25] But if you are a drinker, I don't think that there's anything wrong with you having a drink, a drink, in that environment and space because you know that you're still gonna be level-headed, and you can have conversations, and you're not gonna do anything that you regret with one drink. But two, three, four drinks might not be the best for everybody.

[00:28:44] Yeah, yeah, no. You have to know, first of all- You have to know your limits ... you gotta know your limit. Yeah. But it's like I say, if you don't know your limits- And, and, and you have to know that you have limits even when you see other people, um, sloppy Or surpassing their limits- Yeah ... like I might say. Yeah.

[00:28:59] [00:29:00] But that's the thing. Some people don't drink, so they don't even know their limit. Mm-hmm. So if you- Now, now that's the difference. If you don't drink, have no drinks. Now is not the time or the place for you to be experimenting on- Yeah ... especially if you don't drink, and you go have some Hennessy. And then you, you don't drink, but you done had a shot of tequila, or you don't drink, but you done had- Mm-hmm

[00:29:17] some wine or some champagne. You don't know how that's gonna impair you- Yeah, go- ... impair your judgment. Go drink with your family. Yeah, that part. So yeah, I definitely agree with her with that because we don't get the same common courtesy. Yep. You don't. Let's let her keep going. Those are people outside of your team.

[00:29:35] This is gonna be your most valuable asset. Always put everything in writing. Maybe you had a water cooler conversation, or maybe you had a one-on-one. Make sure you send a follow-up that's explaining in writing, "Oh, I'm so happy that we talked about this," blah, blah, blah, because you're gonna need that trail for something.

[00:29:48] And do not complain to people at work. Do not vent to people at work because those same people will go and tell your boss or tell somebody else what you said, and it's gonna be a whole office mess. Just avoid it by minding your [00:30:00] business, drinking your water, doing your work, securing your check, and going to live your amazing, incredible life.

[00:30:05] If this was helpful, like and follow for more. I like that. She- I like the last- Yeah ... the last, like, little three ones she said. Yeah, she went to Harvard, so, um, she like, she's a little bougie. But all good tips. All good tips. Like I say, I tip- I, I don't think there's anything wrong with making friends at work, but I do think you should be mindful, and you should vet the friendship out before you start indulging in conversations.

[00:30:26] Um, at w- What they be saying? Um, if you don't do anything, or you don't say anything crazy, I ain't gonna say anything crazy to you. At work, ain't no such thing as friends, only associates. Yep. There's only, I've only made one work fr- well, I made a couple of work friends. I have two, I have three work friends.

[00:30:42] But most of the time, it, it don't turn into that, you know? And then it reminds me of a Everybody who watch ESPN know about a Black man named Rob Parker, and he was talking about, like, RG III and then saying, like, is he a corn- he's a cornball brother or whatever. So you're trying to see if somebody's actual brother or their cornball brother.

[00:30:59] [00:31:00] But, you know, you remind me of a dog. What? What are, what are you talking about? You know how the dog be on their hind legs scratching their, their ear? Oh my God. Something is ... Somebody is really on that with me. I got some Vaseline over there. I don't know if that'll help. Ouch. Will Vaseline help? No.

[00:31:15] Somebody need to quit talking about me. That's what's gonna help. They always gonna talk about you when you doing something. But, um, but no, I thought that was pretty good for our, like, our career segment. We got some other stuff coming in there that we'll, we'll split in and I don't know. So All right, so the camera on the pole.

[00:31:32] Judge rules against warrantless Flock search. Texas and Florida, you have probably seen these. Little cameras on a pole, solar panel on top, and that is often a Flock camera. This week, a federal judge in Oklahoma, Judge Sarah Hill, ruled that a Tulsa sheriff's deputy violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights by searching the Flock database for her license plate without a warrant.

[00:31:59] Now let's break this [00:32:00] down. So Flock's run- Flock runs automated license plates readers. They are, um, also known as ALPRs. These cameras capture every plate that drives by with a time and location. If you put enough cameras together and you've got a searchable map of where car... And you've got a searchable map of where cars and the people in them basically are heading.

[00:32:24] Um, according to this ruling, the deputy had no apparent reason to search for her plate other than he, other than the fact it was from California. He then used her travel history from Flock to justify searching her car, where he allegedly found 91 pounds of meth. Sheesh. And the judge said doesn't matter.

[00:32:44] All the evidence after that Flock search gets suppressed, AKA tossed out. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and fruit of the poisonous tree, meaning if the first search was illegal, everything that came [00:33:00] from it gets thrown out, too. The judge went further, calling this kind of tracking indiscriminate mass surveillance, because it's not targeting one suspect.

[00:33:10] It's collecting data on everybody who drives past all the time, ready to pull up on demand. Im- an important caveat here is that this ruling is not binding precedent, but it's one of the first from a federal judge that has called a Flock search unconstitutional. And it lands as Florida and Texas have moved to stop using the technology, and Senator Berry S- Bernie Sanders introduced the Flock...

[00:33:40] Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Block Flock Act to bar federal agencies from using ALPRs. So the takeaway here is being in public isn't the same as connecti- or consenting, I would say, to be tracked. Um, we talked about Flock plenty of times. [00:34:00] They are all around. I don't like, I don't like things like that If it's gonna be in a neighborhood, let the people in the neighborhood vote on it if they want it there.

[00:34:10] That's my take on it. I'm... They serve a purpose when the purpose needs to be served. Stare at the camera. 'Cause I'm used to looking right here. They serve a purpose when the purpose needs to be served, but I do truly feel like, um, if they're going to be put in neighborhoods, then the community members in that neighborhood should be able to vote on if that is something that they are willing to, um, allow.

[00:34:34] Because again, they're being surveilled and they're not even doing anything. But if, you know, if there's a, if there's a need for it and folks agree, I'm with it, but if folks disagree, I'm with that too. Yeah, so my stance on Flock is, is, is similar to you at work. You're being pretty much surveilled against.

[00:34:51] All your stuff is going into the SIM somewhere, but it's only acted- most of the- it's supposed to be only acted on if you do something that's against corporate policy or that's a threat [00:35:00] What the guy is doing verbatim is something I brought up in my interview when I was talking to Flock. I was like, "Yo, how are y'all protecting against-" Unreasonable search and seizure

[00:35:09] yes. Why are they search- They shouldn't only be searching if it's tied to a police report number or like they said in the thing, a warrant. And it should be trackable on who searched what and why you searched this. So they ha- So here's the thing. Auditable. Because, because that's why I said Flock is taking the fall, but it's really not Flock.

[00:35:26] Flock just makes a camera that can do all these different things. The issue is on the police, and I, I brought up like, "Is there, is there a threat for this? Who polices the police?" Because every, um, police district, or whatever you wanna call them, they have the administrative rights to look at what people's doing, and if they are not overseeing that the right way, this is what happens.

[00:35:47] Man, and so the, the sucky thing is that Flock gets the blame. When Flock- When, when, when it, it, when it does have a legitimate use case, but it's being abused- Right ... and, and misused. Right. That's what I'm saying. That's why I said like every time we, [00:36:00] we report on this, I was like, "I get that y'all don't like Flock," but it's really not...

[00:36:03] Flock ain't searching... The people that work at Flock are not searching for these people. Yeah. It's the people who have access to the Flock database. It's like- Yeah ... it's the same situation, like what DMX said in Run Me Up, "Must die, guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people." That's literally what's happening.

[00:36:19] These deranged psychos who are cops are doing something they're not supposed to do, 'cause they can't get mad they red pilled and they got broken up on or whatever, and they, and they searching up people, and that's the, that's not what you're supposed to be doing. And in this case, he searched her because her license plate was out of state, but she wasn't speeding.

[00:36:35] She wasn't doing anything besides in a car for a plate that was out of state. Yeah. That's not enough to warrant you to pull me over. And it's funny, funny that they found all of that in the car and they had to throw all of that away, the evidence, in that- Of course ... case. Yeah, because they got a- Fruit of a poisonous tree

[00:36:55] 'cause they got a union. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's all that stuff and, and so I [00:37:00] hate it because I feel like all the negative publicity they ha- I don't know how long Flock sur- like lasts because Flock has, "Hey, y'all, y'all, y'all gonna have the stupid stuff, but Flock can help you find your car. Flock can help you find missing persons."

[00:37:12] Mm-hmm. And there's other stuff they can do with the drones and stuff, but that's not what they looking at. They, all they see is when they hear Flock, "Oh, they surveilling us." Yep. That's all they think about. But that's how I feel, like this isn't necessarily the same, but it, you can understand where I'm coming from with the Meta Glasses.

[00:37:26] There are creeps- Yeah ... who use them to be creepy, and there are people who did not use them for or with those intentions, but they got a bad rap because of the people that were using them. Um, their brand, uh, perception. Yeah, yeah. No, no, for facts. When... And we go into Meta Glasses, we go for a fact that, um- When I think about it, uh, Amazon, I think it was the Ring Super Bowl commercial when they was talking about the surveillance stuff they did.

[00:37:52] They had good intentions with it, but people didn't like it, so they just- Oh, yeah, that was a big deal a couple years ago. No, this was this year. Oh, no, that's not what I mean. After the Super Bowl. [00:38:00] Didn't watch it. No, we covered the... We covered, we watched the commercial and everything. Oh. But no, in, in, in all seriousness, though, some companies do have the good things now.

[00:38:11] The bad thing is, like, I remember I asked them, like, "What happens with the data?" And the data is not, like, something that technically you have, like, access to. It's encrypted and some other stuff. But it just sucks, 'cause like I said, I got a friend that work for Flock, and I would hate that bad stuff happened to Flock and then something happened to her employment just because of she's technically working on something that's very exciting, but people are abusing it.

[00:38:31] Abusing it, yeah. And that's what- But that's where their, um- Team. What's the team that's supposed to be responsible for y'all, like brand image and stuff? Public relations or something like that? Yeah, the public relations team needs to- Yeah, but- But that, that, that's how they get with the teams and determine, how can we prevent I think that don't matter if every time you...

[00:38:51] A major publication's talking about surveillance, surveillance, surveillance, surveillance, and just making it seem like they are doing it, when it's like, no, this has a function. This needs [00:39:00] to be... Instead of flock surveys, hey, police misuse Flock the wrong way. Yeah, but as a company, they can go in and say, "Well, you, now we're only allowing you to open this up if you're tying it so it's audible."

[00:39:12] You know? You're talking about control. Yeah. Any controls to put into place to, to- And you, and, and I believe that- ... to help them ... and I believe that should be coming. Yeah. But, and they gotta validate and make sure it's a va- Like, I think the part about it is, okay, Flock gotta connect to the police database, and they gotta make sure it's valid, and not just where they can just throw whatever in there and it works.

[00:39:30] Yeah. I'm a, I'm with you on that, but at the same time, Flock shouldn't have to do all that- No, agreed ... for people to do what they supposed to do. But- Agreed, but this is the, the n- the law of the land ... I think they need to do it. If not, I don't know how long they survive with people trying to pull them out the neighborhoods and everything.

[00:39:42] Because I, like whatever people say, you wanna feel safe when you're driving. Like I don't feel like nobody just looking up. Like, I'm not that important that people just looking me up. Yeah. But you make the wrong policeman mad, they, "Oh, I know where you at." That type of stuff. So that's where it gets scary.

[00:39:57] Yeah. So, I don't know, man. [00:40:00] Um, that sucks for Flock, and they keep on getting a bad name, but it is what it is. One of the things I wanted to go into real quick is, uh, where's my thing? Last week we talked about, um, Muse and what it did on the MacBook, and so they had a article following this week was Apple was tightening their macOS full disk access controls over AI agent risk.

[00:40:27] So as artificial intelligence shifts from text-based chatbots to autonomous desktop agents capable of executing complex workflows across local file systems, operating system security architectures are facing new challenges. On macOS, full disk access, FDA, was designed for system maintenance utilities, anti-malware suites, and local backup tools like Time Machine.

[00:40:50] However, modern AI desktop assistants frequently request broad full disk access privileges so they can read user documents, index email archives, compile local notes, [00:41:00] and process personal media. Apple's security engineering team recognized that granting broad file access to LLM-powered applications exposes users to severe security vulnerabilities, particularly indirect prompt injection attacks.

[00:41:13] I like that they're thinking about that. An indirect prompt injection occurs when an AI agent reads an external document, such as a malicious PDF, an incoming email, or a webpage that contains hidden instructions designed to hijack the model's behavior. If the agent holds full disk access, the injected prompt can command the AI to search for the private keys, scan financial documents, and upload them to a remote server without the user's knowledge.

[00:41:37] And that is how you can hack something preying on technically the AI agent is doing what it's supposed to do, inspect everything. But trick it to say, "Hey, do these things while you are inspecting this." So I don't know if, but it's gonna be a when, ClickFix is gonna move to this eventually. When everybody has more agents and stuff on their system, they're gonna be sending emails to people saying, "I know you got an [00:42:00] agent that's in your mailbox.

[00:42:02] I'm gonna tell this agent to open the terminal, run this command, and connect to my C2 server." But Apple is updating macOS permission frameworks to deprecate generic full disk access requests for AI agent classifications. Instead, Apple is enforcing scope workpa- scope workspace sandboxing, hardware isolated memory zones, and granular per-directory user authorization prompts.

[00:42:29] Apple's proactive stance reflects the fundamental shift in how desktop operating systems manage AI integration. Developers building local AI tools can no longer rely on broad system access under the guise of user convenience. This move fo- forces software engineers to adopt strict principles of least privilege, balancing agent autonomy with robust local security boundaries.

[00:42:51] So does forcing users to approve individual folder permissions ruin the seamless user experience promised by AI assistants? And is the tech industry [00:43:00] taking the threat of prompt injection seriously enough as agents gain execution capabilities on personal devices? So, what do you think about that? I, I think that, um, that's the, the only reason to help people understand how serious that permission is that you're about to allow someone to do- Mm-hmm

[00:43:18] is to keep asking you, "Are you sure?" through your consent. That they can only do so much. They can't send you a, "Hey, this is Apple. This permission," they can't send you a personalized video about it. So I'm not mad at it, and it's still them allowing you to determine or, and decide if this is something that you want to actually consent to.

[00:43:39] Yeah, I'll say that much. And like I said, remember we were talking about, like, back in the day when the window say, "Do you want to do this?" Yeah. "Yes, yes." Like, people get mad at it, but hey, they helping you out. Yep. If you don't get none of them questions asked, you're gonna be mad like, "Hey, I ain't say, tell it to do this."

[00:43:53] And I remember two years ago where the first technically indirect prompt affected, it was either Outlook or Calendar or something [00:44:00] like that, where the prompt was hidden, and it literally did what it's supposed to do, but it affected something. I have to go back and look it up, 'cause I read it on an episode that I did, and I was like, "Hmm, this is the new wave."

[00:44:12] So, the attack vectors are changing. Um, Apple is quietly making a major security move in macOS specifically targeted at the rise in waves of desktop AI agents. They are tightening up the FDA permissions because autonomous AI assistants pose risks that traditional software never did. So, imagine your AI assistant has full disk access, and it reads an incoming email that contains hidden text.

[00:44:35] That text could trick the AI agent into secretly searching your hard drive for text documents or passwords and sending them to an external server, all while executing what looks like a normal task. Apple is stepping in to enforce strict sandboxing and isolated workspaces, proving that the traditional permission model simply isn't built for autonomous AI code running on your machine.

[00:44:55] And that's kind of what we were talking about last week when it, when we were talking about guarding AI [00:45:00] agents. And, you know, we actually talked about it this week when it came to the weaponizing your A- uh, career with cybersecurity with AI. So, uh, I think that's pretty interesting. And I also want to know with the applications, are they gonna start building in the control of saying, "Hey, don't let a AI agent have access to this"?

[00:45:17] Like, for example, me, I use password managers on my devices, like third-party ones, so Will it be able to protect against that? And it should, 'cause it's encrypted. It has to know the password. If it don't know my password, that is not stored anywhere in any of my things on my computer, it should not be able to access anything in my password manager.

[00:45:34] So I'm, I'm excited to see what happens with that in the chess match with the AI agents. Watching the Watchers fired OpenAI safety researchers pushback? No. No. It's a, it's one... So it ties into that. I do. We did. I do remember this. From what I remember, I remember reading about it. This is like, I think it's something new, 'cause it was like it's invisible text, Textgreen in Europe.

[00:45:55] So it's do- it's in the EU, so I wanna talk about it 'cause EU is always ahead of us in data and some privacy. Yeah. But I, [00:46:00] I know what it is, and you can take it over. I'll give a quick synopsis. So the synopsis is that, um, OpenAI is making it more prevalent and known that you're using them as whatever you're using them for.

[00:46:14] And so there's gonna be some sort of, um, watermark on your text to let your text s- to let systems know that your text was generated by AI, essentially. But I did see that it was pushed out to, like, the, the EU first. All right. So as regulatory mandates under the European Union's AI Act take effect, AI developers are legally required to provide verifiable methods for identifying synthetic content.

[00:46:42] While visual watermarks on AI generated images and audio signatures have matured, marking plain text has remained a major challenge in machine learning. Plaintext lacks metadata layers and standard formatting can easily be stripped by copy and pasting raw text into a basic notepad. In response, OpenAI [00:47:00] developed Textgreen, an algorithmic watermarking system embedded directly into the generation pipeline of ChatGPT and Codex.

[00:47:06] Instead of appending visible tags or metadata, Textgreen subtl- subtly alters the mathematical probabilities governing word selection while the model constructs a response, embedding an invisible statistical footprint directly inside the language structure. So- We talked about this. So it's basically AI uses certain words that are, I guess, kind of more predictable, and that's how they're able to determine.

[00:47:29] Like- I, I actually was gonna say, so this is pretty much AI hashing. Literally Technical and the legal deep dive. When generating text, language models calculate probability dis-distributions for the next token, like you said, word or subword. Text Grain divides tokens into pseudo random green and red lists based on a secret key.

[00:47:49] By favoring green tokens during generation, generation, it embeds a statistical bias that a detector tool can spot without altering human readability. [00:48:00] OpenAI's internal benchmarks reveal significant fragility in 400-word samples. Replacing just 10% of words with synonyms reduces detection's accuracy from 92% to 66%.

[00:48:11] Replacing 25% of words causes detection rates to plummet to 17%. In technical domains like mathematics, physics, or source code generation where precise terminology and rigid syntax are mandatory, the model has far fewer token alternatives. Consequently, watermarking efficiently, efficiency drops sharply in technical subjects compared to an open-ended prose, or is it prose?

[00:48:37] Wait, can you... I'm sorry. Do, can you say that one more time? Which one? That- Last sentence? Like, that last three. Consistently, I'm gonna read the whole thing. Consistently- You and me. Consequently, watermarking efficiency drops sharply in technical subjects compared to open-ended, I think that's prose.

[00:48:57] P-R-O-Z-E. That's gotta be prose 'cause [00:49:00] R-O-Z-E is rose. Yeah. So I'm saying prose. I could be wrong. So while Text Grain allows OpenAI to satisfy EU compliance requirements on paper, its technical limitations raise questions about practical enforcement. Academics, publishers, and security teams hoping for a reliable AI text detector will find that like manual editing, paraphrasing, or language translation easily destroys the watermark footprint, leaving a massive gap between legal compliance and real world utility.

[00:49:28] So is invisible watermarking a genuine security solution or simply compliance theater designed to appease European regulators? And given that edited text strips watermarks can, how can schools or organizations prevent false accusations against writers whose work lacks a watermark? Okay, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out.

[00:49:47] I don't like that we're using another tool that has to be created correctly- Well, I, I think it's embedded ... to get- It's embedded into the tool I don't, I don't like it. It can be off. I don't like it. Well, yeah, it just showed you how it could be off. You can just [00:50:00] paraphrase and change things. Synonyms. I don't like that, but at least they're trying

[00:50:08] I don't know. I think this is one of the things where the EU was telling people, "Well, hey, y'all need to do something." And so- I'm not mad at the EU ... it's lip service. I'm never mad at the EU. The EU put the pressure on the people to figure it out. Figure it out. You created it, now figure out how we can govern it, period.

[00:50:23] That's how they coming. They always coming in that same tone. So I'm not mad at it because it then forces other nations who are followers of the trends of the EU to figure it out for their people. Yeah. All strong points made. All valid points made. Um, since you talked about the security researchers, let's just go into, like, what O- OpenAI is actually facing now with the security researchers.

[00:50:50] All right, so watching the watchers. Fired OpenAI safety researchers push back. Now, last week, OpenAI fired three [00:51:00] safety researchers: Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbeck, and Mikita Belinski. OpenAI, OpenAI says they mishandled sensitive company information, including allegedly sharing confidential info with an outside AI safety organization.

[00:51:17] A spokesperson told TechCrunch it was a pattern of misconduct. This week, the three published an open letter to OpenAI's safety committee denying those claims and warning about a chilling effect. A chilling effect is when people stop speaking up, not because a rule says they can't, but because they're scared of what might happen if they do.

[00:51:40] Their argument, safety researchers see risk first, and they need to collaborate with outside experts to address them. They say that if the rules are unclear and people get fired suddenly, employees will stop raising concerns. In their words, the people closest to the risk become afraid to speak. They also deny [00:52:00] leaking info about OpenAI's newer models being harder to monitor.

[00:52:05] This is about chain of the thought monitorability, being able to read an AI model's step-by-step reasoning so humans can spot problems. If models get harder to monitor, it's harder to catch them doing something wrong. Jasmine Wang says she was told she was fired for accessing an executive's email. Her side, that access was given to her for recruiting, so she asked IT to remove it, and when she opened a sensitive email by mistake, she reported it within minutes.

[00:52:36] OpenAI's side, an internal memo says the findings were not about raising safety concerns and that the company agrees with the researchers' recommendations. We don't know the full story. Both sides are on the record, but the pattern is worth watching. The takeaway is when the watchers get nervous, everybody should be paying attention.

[00:52:57] I think that that is a very [00:53:00] unfortunate situation to be in Truly Hmm. Yeah, I think that... I, like, I don't know what to believe. That's how I feel. I don't know if you- I believe the people that got fired always. I, I mean, I'm not saying that they're, that I don't believe them, but who's to say that they weren't potentially abusing things?

[00:53:26] I hate to go in... What did, what is it, what do they say in the court of law? You're guilty, or you're innocent until proven guilty. Like, you gotta kind of come in that way. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. That part. But I, I do think that from, like, that little piece where it was saying how, like, uh, she read someone's email by accident, she read it and she reported it.

[00:53:46] Exactly. And I- It'd be one thing if she read it and she didn't, she didn't report it. I don't f- I feel like she don't get no points for reporting it. Yeah, and I've- Within minutes? And I've seen that in- Within minutes. Do you know most people don't know how to report stuff at work? Trust me, I've [00:54:00] seen within, like, DOP you can read something that you ain't supposed to.

[00:54:02] Like, you see somebody, like, tax returns or a email went out 'cause DOP fired her for that. And you was like, "Oh, hey, I was doing work. I clicked on this by accident. That's how it opened up." I believe them. Within minutes? 'Cause why would I admit that? Why would I make that up? Do you know how hard... Do you know how serious you have to be to self-report something that you did at work?

[00:54:23] First of all, most people don't have a conscience, so most people are going to let bygones be bygones, and they're not gonna follow that step to report said data that was, um, exposed, you know, to an unauthorized party. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, no. Um... But I, I do feel like folks who are in roles like that are at a heightened risk for the company to be able to turn the situation around on them.

[00:54:55] Yeah, no, I mean, not only that, they're actually reporting, "Hey..." She reported it [00:55:00] within minutes. Not even... Take it off that. It's getting hard to track these things 'cause it's getting too advanced. And so before it's too late, they don't care 'cause they're thinking about making money, and this person's like, "Hey, I'm thinking about the world."

[00:55:13] So I believe them. I always believe the person over the corporation. Mm-hmm. I always do. Because if that was the case, then they would never fire them. They want in the go along get along gang. So I don't know, man. Um, that's tough for them. I'll... They probably land somewhere. They might be working at a competitor by now, unless they gave them an NDA.

[00:55:33] But when you give people like an NDA like that, they definitely gotta get a good severance or some, pay out their contract. If not, they go somewhere else. That's how I feel. Um- This is about where we at? The federal crackdown hits high tech H-1B visa and green card sponsorships. So, um, the intersection of corporate talent acquisition, [00:56:00] immigration policy, and tech sector employment reached a critical turning point following the sweeping enforcement actions announced by the US Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security.

[00:56:09] Following public statements from Vice President JD Vance targeting corporate visa utilization, federal regulators initiated comprehensive audits into how major technology companies deploy the H-1B visa and the PERM sponsorship program. So the federal agencies issued a temporary hold on specific corporate green card certification pathways and instituted heightened audit requirements for the H-1B visa extension applications.

[00:56:35] Investigations are targeting tech majors focused on wage classification standard, third party contractor arrangements, and compliance with mandatory domestic recruitment posting rules

[00:56:49] Regulators allege that enterprise tech firms utilize structured wage tiers and third-party staffing agencies to lower labor costs and prioritize foreign visa holders over [00:57:00] domestic engineering candidates. This aggressive policy shift directly impacts human resources strategy across Silicon Valley and major tech hubs.

[00:57:09] Enterprise software companies relying on foreign technical talent for specialized engineering, AI research, and cloud architect roles face increased administrative friction, legal overhead, and potential talent retention challenges as foreign workers face prolonged visa processing delays. Okay, so this is, uh, a good one.

[00:57:29] Um, so it says, "Does tightening H-1B visa oversight protect domestic tech wages, or does it push engineering talent to international tech hubs like Canada and Europe?" And so I will go back down here to me. This is-- I-- We're in the DFW, and this has been a thing. There are people who have strict podcasts in Frisco and Plano where they're trying to cover the H-1B fraud, where there are people who are...

[00:57:57] Like H-1Bs, actually, you know what? Y'all don't [00:58:00] need me to make it up. Let me actually read the definition for you

[00:58:10] So the H-1B visa is a non-immigrant US work visa that allows American companies and employers to temporarily, temporarily hire foreign workers in specific... No.

[00:58:24] The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant US work visa that allows American companies and employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that require specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or higher. And so some of the exposés they have been doing out here where they've been finding people with H-1Bs working at 7-Eleven.

[00:58:46] Mm-mm. You never see that stuff? Mm-mm. Yeah. It's got bad. Texas has definitely been on it, uh, just because when you think about, um... And I could do this too, um I'm gonna ask how much- So does [00:59:00] that mean that they were working somewhere, they were fired, and now they ended up at the 7-Eleven? Or- Hang on. So I asked the question, like, how much are H-1B visa making compared to American citizens for the same role?

[00:59:10] And it says the data on H-1B visa salaries compared to American citizens vary de- depending on the study industry, but I wanna know. So at large tech companies of major startups, H-1B workers are typically paid salaries comparable to, to or slightly higher than US citizens in the same role. For example, a deal platform analysts show H-1B workers earning a median salary of $140,000 compared to $130,000 for American workers in equivalent roles.

[00:59:36] Um- So they making more? In some cases Let's see. I'm, I'm finding all type of links. So that's like, is there a pay gap? If so, what it is. So they said, like I said, depends on company to company, which I agree. I think some of the stuff is company to company and how you feel about it. Um, they stated in the press conference that, hey, they are undercutting, uh, Americans, which- I [01:00:00] did see that.

[01:00:00] They're saying how all these jobs are going basically externally when they could be- Yeah ... housing and sup- and supporting families that are internal to America. Yeah, 'cause companies' idea is to... They were, they were stating how certain companies would lay off, like, thousands of employees and then only hire, like, 1,000 H-1B visa people.

[01:00:20] So now you got the people with the H-1B saying, "Well, Americans don't qualify," which I, I agree is false. They just want to be paid a wage that they can live, and if you're not gonna pay that, you can pay them less, 'cause I got experience with knowing how much you could pay people overseas versus here. My heart goes out to the people who were, were, were this close to getting that job.

[01:00:45] They were this close, and now because of this, it's over. And I know, well- At those companies at least ... I'm gonna have to double-check with one of my, um, one of my friends to see if he... I think he's a US citizen now, and he's not in the green card. Have, have you, have you, have you [01:01:00] been in that situation?

[01:01:00] 'Cause I have. What? Where you have teammates or, like, friends who were on a visa and lost their role, and they had to go back, or they had to hurry up. 'Cause you remember when all this was going on, you only had, like, 90 days or something. I could be wrong. I can't remember. It was a long time ago. But they were...

[01:01:18] It was a timeframe that you had to secure additional employment or to, to help extend your stay here. 'Cause you have to be employed is one of the... You know what I mean? Yeah. But when you were saying with the 7-Eleven thing, is that because they were employed and now they're not employed, and now they're working at 7-Eleven?

[01:01:38] No. I think they brought them o- No, there've been H-1B scams where a guy's paying for people visas and not paying them. Like 7-Eleven paying for it, or? Uh, it's a lot. I'll have to send you the video. Okay. It's a lot. 'Cause it's, it's a video I actually reacted to, but it's been a thing in Texas. Like- Mm. But honestly, it's b- it's just white people are out there peddling a bunch that, like, they feel like the Indian people are taking over.

[01:01:58] That's really what they feel like. [01:02:00] Um, I don't really care. At the end of the day, it's, it's just a lot going on with that. Um, I do think the people who are doing it the right way should not be impacted, if you want me to be totally honest. However, some of the companies that they mention is, uh... Let me see.

[01:02:20] I can lo- I think I can check my story. Let me turn it all the way down

[01:02:29] So like some of the stories was, I mean, companies are the US announced suspension of Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, Capgemini, ACL from permanent labor certification program. These are all companies that you probably been reached out to. They got Indian recruiters or something like that. And this is not me doing a hate speech.

[01:02:47] Uh, I just want them to know, 'cause I remember we did the episode with Bryson one time. They made us change the title where, uh, Vivek Ramaswamy was talking about American culture and Indians and all that stuff I and people I [01:03:00] know have literally had like Indian people mess our interviews up on purpose so they can get more Indians in.

[01:03:07] I'd rather you just tell me that than butcher my interview. Like, I had to wake up at like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning one time- To prepare ... for the interview. Yeah, 'cause it's a different time. No, I had to, no, I had to prepare. I had to interview. Well, it's a different time. That's what I'm saying. And they like, they BS my interview.

[01:03:19] They didn't ac- they didn't let me really interview. They talked the whole time and then tried to pass on me. Like, I told the recruiter, I was like, "Respectfully, I didn't even get a chance to talk."

[01:03:30] Mm, I was like, "This ain't it, fam. This ain't it." Um, matter of fact

[01:03:40] So now, the thing is s- people are being optimistic, but this is reminding me of, um, crack epidemics and opioids and all stuff like that. Like, it's not a... When it's with us, it's not a problem, but when it start affecting the YTs- ... that's when it get to be a problem. Bro, [01:04:00] please. You know it's true. So that's what's affecting them, because I think me and Lee was talking about this earlier, something like they were saying, "Hey, white men being di- discriminated against, getting jobs," and stuff like that.

[01:04:10] And we was like, "Y'all still got the biggest percentage of the workforce. What are you talking about?" It's the other people who are being, like, discriminated against that's, like, under 10%. Yet we are... My thing has always been let the labor market reflect what we are the population. If we got 13% or 30% of whatever the population is, let us be 30% in tech.

[01:04:32] Don't have us at no 6%, knowing that it's a lot of people that's been putting the work to get in there, and they can do the jobs. So w- while people saying, "Hey, they not qualified," no, it's a lot of people that's just been BS-ing, y'all been messing up their interviews so they couldn't do the jobs. But we can do 'em.

[01:04:46] Y'all got trained, y'all be passing all the stuff around, and I, I know how that game go. Respect. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. Because we know for a fact if it's the other way around, they wouldn't let us come there and pull that stuff off in they country. [01:05:00] So I think that's what it's all about.

[01:05:01] Because you have to do something. You always talk about the economy and what's going on, how people can pay stuff. Well, hey, get them jobs, and put in a law that, hey, these US people can only hire X amount of people overseas and not try to outsource everything, because you cannot undercut your American citizens like that.

[01:05:21] That's a design for disaster. So I don't know. I'm optimistic in saying hopefully they'll try to do the, at least the right thing when it comes to employment, because it's been rough. Mm-hmm. So I don't know. But, uh, definitely if you are more familiar with the topic, in the comments let us know how you feel about those bans.

[01:05:39] And if you know anybody that's personally affected by that, like, I hope they're able to, they get back on their feet, 'cause I mean- I hope that too- You know ... seriously. It's, it's rough out here. And then people come over here and start families, you know what I mean? Yeah. And now that's at risk or in jeopardy.

[01:05:55] I know, I- And that's not fair. That's not fair. It's a guy, let me see something. He... Let me see if I can find him on [01:06:00] TikTok. But he, all he do is comment on, on the people

[01:06:06] Let me see if I can find it. I don't think I bookmarked it or did I? Here you go, right here From one of my followers, and they live here in Texas. That follower says that they were born here in Texas, and they live in a specific metro area, but I'm not gonna disclose that. But they said that they work along Pakistani and Indian workers.

[01:06:24] They said that their personal relationships have also given them a close look at how people they know navigate jobs, housing, and schools. The biggest allegation, because this is alleged, they claim an Indian tech worker showed them how H-1B fraud allegedly happens. Interesting. They also allege that certain people inside American companies hire only other Indians.

[01:06:39] Those are some serious claims, and I do want to be done by the specific people and companies involved, and they said that they would send me an email by tonight. This follower also says that they know how people in these networks buy four homes costing $800,000 or more, along with land. They describe places of worship for Islam and social connections supporting what they call a parallel monetary system.

[01:06:52] There you go. Right now, these are allegations from the follower, so I haven't gotten the actual details that they said that they do have. But that information is coming. I can't wait to see exactly what they send. This [01:07:00] is gonna be pretty monumental and epic because allegations about fraud and unfair hiring deserve answers.

[01:07:06] Subscribe to our free newsletter. Link is in the bio. It's also on Substack and Nick Schrier Podcast. But yeah, so that's kinda all that... That's like, it's a whole thing. Like, if you wanna have some fun, type in Texas H-1B and just have at it. It, it, it's a lot. Um, so yeah, that's, that's that on that. Um, let me see

[01:07:32] I think you should talk about the FBI, uh, Shawty hunters Let's get it. They get it. Hang on real quick. Jeezy. They get it, Shawty. Is this the CIA officer? No, this is the FBI risky Shawty hunter member. Okay. Big

[01:07:52] Whenever you ready. Third party problem, ShinyHunters, the FBI, and a missed patch. So next up on [01:08:00] our agenda, the hackers who hacked FBI and the FBI's very public response. On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel, we done talked about Kash a couple times. Kash Patel announced the arrest of another su- suspected member of ShinyHunters, the extortion group believed to be behind last month's breach of fbijobs.gov.

[01:08:22] According to The New York Times, the suspect is a Canadian citizen arrested in Pennsylvania. His name and charges haven't been released. ShinyHunters, this is just a quick rewind for you, ShinyHunters claimed they got in using an Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day, then moved laterally into FBI-managed cloud infrastructure and stole two to three terabytes of data.

[01:08:47] That's their claim. What's confirmed from data samples: employees' home addresses, Social Security numbers, sensitive job assignments, and info on family members. Mind you, we're talking about the FBI here A [01:09:00] zero-day is a security flaw the vendor doesn't know about yet. Zero days to fix that security flaw.

[01:09:07] Lateral movement is when attackers get into one system then hop to others inside of the network. But the plot twist on the zero-day claim, the FBI says the breach came from a third-party contractor managed platform that failed to install a security update. So the FBI got hit through a vendor, that's third-party risk, and it's the theme that we've been kind of talking a lot about this year.

[01:09:32] Now, since then, Dutch police arrested a 24-year-old in Amsterdam. The group says he's not one of them. The FBI publicly told members to turn themselves in. A member known as quote-unquote "Ray" was reportedly detained in Jordan and is cooperating, and the group's main spokesperson has went silent. Shiny Hunters' go-to move isn't fancy malware, it's actually vishing, which is voice phishing, calling [01:10:00] basically someone to pretend like you're someone to get them to do s- whatever you're trying to get them to do.

[01:10:04] Um, so in this case, they're trying to trick them into handing over passwords and MFA codes. They've also used device code phishing, where you trick, where you're tricked into entering a code that signs the attacker in as you. Um, and so I think, like me and HD always say, that you are only as strong as your weakest security vendor.

[01:10:27] Yeah. I don't have much to add on that. It's just funny that they said, they told people to turn themselves in. It's like, if you commit a c- a crime, who gonna turn they self in? Like, let's be for real. You want them to turn themselves in 'cause you don't know who they is. Exactly. Trying to get baby faces right there.

[01:10:40] 'Cause if you know who they is, you gonna go get 'em. Yeah, so I don't know. Shiny Hunters. Shiny Hunter's been on our g- I wish that we could like ... H- I mean, you know what? I probably can put in like a little data chart to show how many times we've talked about said people. Yeah. I gotta figure out how we can connect it like that on the back end.

[01:10:59] I think I [01:11:00] got something that's already doing that. So let me see where we... Okay

[01:11:10] So this is one, um, one of the friends of the show. She's a recruiter, and she posted about she declined an offer, and the hiring manager was mad. So she gave me the deets, and I'm gonna read it. It's funny. Yeah, I can tell you guys- Do I know this person? I don't think so. So let me go back to her story when she was talking about it, and then I can read the full thing

[01:11:40] Me: "Denies an offer and provide reasoning." Leader: "That's not fair because the experience in, isn't listed on their resume, nor do we ask questions to verify experience. If they look like they have potential, why not offer?" Me: "In addition to them not having experience, they also have a very long rap sheet."

[01:11:57] Wait, wait, wait. This person is going back and forth [01:12:00] because they're, they declined an offer to someone. Yeah. Okay. The recruiter. And the leader was crickets. Okay. And so I said, "We need to talk about this on the show." And so she was like, "So boom." "I had a situation at work where I declined a candidate for a leader position because they didn't have the experience we were looking for, and there were also findings on their background check that disqualified them from the role.

[01:12:22] The hire leader pushed back and basically said that if someone shows leadership potential in the interview, they should have the discretion to give that person an opportunity. I explained I understood his perspective, but in this situation, the candidate doesn't qualify. But here's my thing, recognizing someone's potential and determining whether they meet the qualifications for a leadership position are two different things.

[01:12:41] I'm all for giving people opportunities, but we also have hiring standards and background requirements that we have to follow." It was the background check for me, please. If you don't qualify, baby, you don't qualify, please. Yeah, that's facts. And I'm just like, uh, that's something, um- Please ... she posted that, um, when I was talking to Lee, and I was just like, [01:13:00] the thing is, recruiters have to make sure that they're doing their due diligence because if they offer somebody that's not qualified and somebody who lost out who's more qualified finds out, the company could be in for a lawsuit.

[01:13:13] And so a lot of people don't think about that, and that's the reason why she did that. But it's cool 'cause you never see... We always see a lot of people getting hired and they're not supposed to be hired, but recruiters pushing back and really protecting, CYA, cover your ass- Yeah ... on, on they self for doing that.

[01:13:28] So I thought that was cool, and since we are already here for reading stuff, let me see. I had a thing, but I'm trying to see if I can find it. I got one. I think I'm benefiting from pretty privilege. This a Reddit? Mm-hmm.

[01:13:51] Let me put it on me So I've been working in IT industry for about three years now. I have my bachelor's of [01:14:00] IT with the most of the major certs. I'm just good at taking tests, but in real life I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and I'm really bad at my job. I break stuff all the time and constantly need help.

[01:14:10] Despite this, I'm praised, given promotion, raises, and job offers. I am what I believe most people would think a very attractive woman. I'm pretty sure I'm only getting by because of my looks, which is okay for now, but I know eventually I will need to actually know my shit. I don't really know why I'm posting this other than to get, get it out.

[01:14:27] I don't talk to anyone else about this because I don't want to seem like I'm bragging. It seems like everyone else in the IT industry is struggling, but it has been an absolute breeze for me. So if you're an attractive woman out there, consider getting into IT. Uh, pretty privilege is real, but even as a man in IT, I feel like- What?

[01:14:45] I, I've experienced benefits based on how I present myself. A lot of IT guys look like the stereotypical weeb, and leadership doesn't want to learn more about a guy that looks like the South Park World of Warcraft dude. If you're just a tad more professional, stay well-groomed, et cetera, it's going to [01:15:00] help in my experience.

[01:15:02] She said... He said, "We have a guy in the office who's closer to that stereotype. He brings donuts on Mondays. Everybody loves him." Um, let's see. These are comments. Yeah. I'm sure say we got a long one. "Pretty privilege is definitely a thing, but keep in mind that IT is full of not so socially adept people. So if you have good social skills, you can communicate well and aren't a complete disaster on the hands-on part of the job, you have a leg up on most of your colleagues.

[01:15:28] Also, in my years in the field, I have found that people who second-guess themselves are mostly better at the job than the self-assured know-it-alls." Agreed. So here's the last one: "As a nerdy, handsome guy who replaced arguably someone similar to myself, the difference came down to friendliness and relatability I had with those I was helping.

[01:15:47] Many of the folks I helped out would say they used to dread asking for help from IT because the guy would make it seem like such an inconvenience to help them, even though it's his primary responsibility. Even when things went wrong and I screwed up, being able to joke about the [01:16:00] situation while obviously trying to make an effort to quickly rectify it helped a bunch of my relationships with them.

[01:16:05] Make efforts to continuously improve and turn those book smarts into street smarts, and the imposter syndrome will eventually fade a bit. I find myself amazed at how quickly I'm able to turn around a complex task that would've taken hours before and now completing them in mere minutes now that I have understanding and experience to back up my actions and decisions.

[01:16:22] Good luck." Okay, I found one. This is the last one 'cause it's a girl at IT. Hi. Bro, please. Please. "Also a girl at IT. The pretty privilege is very much real. I'm two years into the field without a degree and work as a network admin for 85K currently. My employers have always told me being a female in the industry is unheard of and that I'm a unicorn.

[01:16:44] I firmly believe it has influenced all three of my job hires. I've done dumb shit. We all do. It's how we learn. However, when you continue to do the dumb shit instead of learning why it was dumb, that's when it becomes a problem. This field is forever growing with an endless hole of things to learn. I hope it will become [01:17:00] more with the experience.

[01:17:01] Until then, get them certs, make home labs, and break shit. Learn your fundamentals and why things are a certain way, et cetera. You'll be fine." The girls are configuring networks and collecting checks. I'm obsessed, and I guess... Oh, this the girl, I guess, in question

[01:17:20] Okay, I can see. She funny for posting that. Who needs uptime with that face card? Finally someone who gets it. That's funny to me. Um, so I thought that was funny. Um- I do think that when you take care of your appearance, and 'cause it, no one cares if you're best, well-dressed and you're stupid. When you take ca- Seriously, no one cares.

[01:17:42] When you take care of yourself and you care about your appearance and you're smart, you a bad, you a bad mamma jamma, or sir mamma jamma. Hmm. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. All right, I'm stop it. Do, do, do, do, do, do. [01:18:00] And then I think the last one was from- Actually, we got two more. Oh, go ahead. You wanna go? Um, we got the epic, and then we have- Well, I was talking about the Reddits.

[01:18:10] Oh. I didn't have a Reddit, sorry. I had one more, 'cause it was like a, I'm trying to find some proactive advice for the people that's in the field, and they said, "I started asking recruiters if the position is actually approved to be filled. The answers have been pretty revealing." What? That's a good... I like that person.

[01:18:28] Come on, tell me more. A couple of months ago, I made it to the final interview for an operations role: four conversations, a spreadsheet exercise, and a presentation to the department head. The recruiter called afterwards and said everyone really liked me, but they needed to wait for headcount approval before discussing an offer.

[01:18:45] I asked what that meant since the job had been advertised for almost six weeks. Apparently, the manager wanted to hire someone, but finance hadn't actually approved the additional position yet. I wasn't rejected, r- I wasn't rejected, there just wasn't an approved job to offer me. Three [01:19:00] weeks later, the recruiter emailed me saying the position had been put on hold indefinitely.

[01:19:03] Since then, I've started asking questions during that initial phone screen. Is this an approved position that you're actively authorized to fill, or is the team still working through headcount approval? I don't ask it aggressively. Usually, I just bring it up when we're discussing the interview process and hiring timeline.

[01:19:19] Most recruiters give a straightforward answer. Yes, approved opening. Here's when we'd like someone to start. Great. But I've also gotten, "We're still evaluating our staffing needs for the next quarter. The hiring manager is building a shortlist while leadership finalizes the budget." And my personal favorite, "We're interviewing proactively so we're ready when the position becomes available."

[01:19:36] The last one was for a listing marked urgently hiring. I'm not saying every company with a pending approval is deliberately wasting people's time. Budgets change, departments reorganize, hiring freezes happen, but there are pretty big differences between interviewing for a job that exists and interviewing for a job someone hopes will exist.

[01:19:54] If I'm unemployed and need income, I can afford to prioritize the second category. If I'm employed and casually [01:20:00] exploring options, maybe it's worth staying in touch. I still apply to interesting positions. I still do interviews. I'm just trying to establish whether there's an actual hiring decision to be made before I rearrange my week around three panels and a take-home project.

[01:20:12] It takes about 10 seconds to ask, and I wish I started doing it earlier. One second. Go back. Reread that line where it said, um, shortlist. That one. The hiring manager is building a shortlist while leadership finalizes the budget. Imagine you on your knuckles, and they building a shortlist. What? Imagine you on your knuckles.

[01:20:32] Imagine you are at your wit's end. You have been interviewing for weeks and months, and you come, and they talking about they building a shortlist. Imagine. I've seen it all. Imagine the audacity. I've been to where I've got to think about it- I think if you're building a shortlist, you should just not even be wasting people's times.

[01:20:51] Do we see what's going on in the world today? I'ma give the fellas a good equivalent. Imagine getting a verbal offer and just for them to call you in, like, two weeks, "Hey, [01:21:00] uh, unfortunately, they got to put the role on hold." I'm not mad at them asking that question at all. Them giving you an offer and putting the role on hold is- Is that illegal?

[01:21:11] I'ma give you a good analogy. Fellas, you ever been, when your single days, did you ever fall asleep on a you up text? That's what it's like It's bigger than that. Nah, that's the hurt because you wake up and like, you be like, "Really?" Or 'cause I think it's the same thing because they was interested. The other one is, um, you waiting up for them to come through and they never come.

[01:21:36] Like the picture of Ralph. No, that's, that's actually a better s- situation. I, I don't think so. Forget it. Because th- in this situation, in one of the jobs they was pretty much offered, but it got put on hold, so that's why I'm saying like it's a similar like. That's like you was waiting up. Yeah, I was waiting up because you- For you to come and you didn't come.

[01:21:51] Yeah. I'm, I'm bothered. Seriously, that bothers me. That bothers me because people are really out here [01:22:00] trying to find employment, and building a shortlist... Yeah, so typically I like to ask like, "Hey- Please ... where are you in the interview process? How fast are you looking for somebody to start? How many people have you been interviewing?

[01:22:14] I like their direct question. What type of candidate do you guys see me as? Because I actually wanted to put this on, um, LinkedIn not too long ago about like, has any company regretted hiring candidate A when candidate B really was the best choice? 'Cause that's what, what happens too. Sometimes you gotta figure out, "Hey, am I candidate A or B?"

[01:22:33] And sometimes you figure out by the way, the, by, by the way they get to you in the way like, "Hey, if candidate A don't accept, we're gonna hit candidate B up." And then some companies don't let you know that. And so it's all important of just asking the questions because don't nobody like waiting around for a job that ain't really hiring.

[01:22:48] Like- I don't even w- just like the person said, I don't even wanna waste my week and the mental capacity- Yeah ... and the mental strength that it takes to get prepared for an interview for you to be building a shortlist. Yeah. [01:23:00] Build... Let's- If you are in the comments, have you been told they are building a shortlist?

[01:23:07] I don't like that Hey, it be like that though It be like that. Um, I think the last one, 'cause I got some, some more TikToks for us to react to. I think, like, I wanted to... You probably should react to, not react, but, um, Epic Systems is the big one, 'cause that's healthcare stuff. All right, no logs, no proof, Epic hits pause.

[01:23:37] Epic, the company behind MyChart, the app you use to see your test results and message your doctor, has paused most of its product development to focus on security. Y'all, that is huge. Ginormous. CEO Judy Faulkner told Modern Healthcare the pause would likely last about six weeks. Why? Because an AI [01:24:00] model, Anthropic Cybersecurity-focused model, Myth- Mythos, um, turned up security flaws that could allow access to patient data.

[01:24:08] Epic hasn't said exactly what the bugs are, but here's what made me sit up. Epic's chief security officer told The New York Times that in some customer setups, outsiders could access patient records without the intrusion showing up in the logs. Now, logs are the security camera footage of your systems.

[01:24:31] Every login, every record viewed, every change, it's supposed to leave a trail. Logs are how you detect an attack, investigate it, and prove what happened. If an attacker can get in without leaving a log entry, you might never know. That is obviously the scariest part. Now, Epic has not said these bugs were exploited.

[01:24:53] This is a we found it, we're fixing it story, not a we got hacked story. And [01:25:00] context matters here. MyChart supports over 320 million patient records across the US healthcare, is a top target. The 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware attack hit data on more than 192 million people. So we're talking, like, almost double that closely.

[01:25:19] Almost. Um, pausing new features to fix security is honestly very rare. So the fact that they are even doing that, and even for such a... Six weeks is a long time. Product teams, software development, the life cycle, um

[01:25:38] What is it called? What is it called? Um, agile. It's supposed to be an agile environment, which means that it, it runs very fast. And so, um, the kind of decision that they had to make, I think the other folks in the industry should kind of be studying. Taking that space back to reconnect, reassess, and pivot is very [01:26:00] important.

[01:26:00] Um, but the takeaway here is now AI is finding bugs faster than humans can ship features. The companies that win are the ones willing to hit pause. I think that they should be commended for what they're doing. They found a bug, and they said, "Hey, hold on. Let's stop doing everything until we kind of figure out how to mitigate the risk we already have before we start bringing in additional risk."

[01:26:23] And when you do that, going forward, they're going to have some measures in place that will help them consider what additional risk implications they could suffer. So my thing actually is that, um-

[01:26:43] Oh, one more thing, sorry. Go ahead. It says, "Epic says it doesn't have access to customer medical data. Hospitals and providers do, but a bug in Epic's software could affect many providers at once. Frontier AI models can now scan code and systems for flaws at scale," and this is basically how they found [01:27:00] out what was going on in their environment, using those models at scale.

[01:27:06] So my thing is, is Mythos finding stuff faster or is it just more thorough? Probably both. And does Epic actually have a robust vulnerability management team? Probably not. A, a robust pen testing team, because that probably was something that should've... And app security. Like, a lot of times they just didn't staff for those things, so it found it, so technically it's not faster.

[01:27:25] We know most people don't really got a vulnerability management team. Mm-hmm. You did vulnerability management, so you know. Mm-hmm. Would you ever go back to VMT? Absolutely not. Why? You'd be having fun. No, it was not fun. It was not. Uh, I don't, I didn't enjoy babysitting people and, and trying to help them, because they don't care.

[01:27:46] They gotta do the upgrades- Yeah, they- ... and patches and everything Like, that's, that's not, they have their own focus. That's not their focus. That's your focus, but that's not their focus for their day job. So I didn't like motivating people to understand how important it was and, like, [01:28:00] having to play devil's advocate between them and leadership on why they need to fix it.

[01:28:05] Yeah. Um, this is good though, because so many people use Epic, MyChart. A lot. All my kids have MyChart, so. Everybody got MyChart. So, um, I don't know. Shout out to Epic for, for holding it down, six-week freeze. Like I said- I didn't know Epic was behind MyChart though, so that's cute. Really? No, I didn't. See, that- I mean, I knew MyChart

[01:28:26] Questions, questions, questions. Kim, hang on, let me, let me go solo. Kim, that's why we need you on the show, because you've been working with Epic for a long time and you be trying to act shy. So I'ma make sure I cut this pu- I'ma make sure I cut this part up and send it to you because we need you on the show to stop being shy.

[01:28:43] Kim, we need you. I remember you, girl. So- Pull up on us. Yeah, I think if you ask, she'll come. Did you do that when you was little? You go ask your mama can you stay because if I actually gonna say no? Yeah. It was like your mama could say no to somebody else. And my mom always, no, my mama always said no. She didn't care who asked.

[01:28:57] Really? What? She would tell me yes. My [01:29:00] mom did never play that. You can put her on FaceTime right now. She, she would actually be like, "When we get in the car, and don't, don't be having your friends come up and ask me nothing, 'cause you already know what the answer gonna be." If it would've been me, she would say, "Okay, she can come."

[01:29:10] If you say so. She was straight Oh no, we never... Unless one of my cousins was in trouble, nobody ever said no My mom never say yes Um, let me see. Let me go to, I think one of the ones I wanna talk about was, uh, Beezy, the video about why she think in-person interviews are about to start trumping, uh, virtual interviews.

[01:29:34] And so I definitely wanted to talk about that, 'cause I thought that was pretty interesting, 'cause I have my own take on that. Big world. Where is she at? Stay scheming. I was about to say, mm-mm. Who's trying to get at me? Dog. [01:30:00] Dog. Damn. Life's so short. I don't ride for my- Look I don't wanna go to court ... go to court.

[01:30:05] All right. Let me say something for the lawyer though But I don't know. Like I said, I'm, I'm gonna get to the thing, but like y'all had to be there because when that dropped on Worldstar, then they said- Oh my God, Worldstar used to slap Kobe my nigga, I hate to have to be him. He about to lose 150 M. You wasn't with me shooting in the gym.

[01:30:23] Huh. Bitch, you wasn't with me shooting in the gym. That and he was, he went at Com too. He said he bothers, what he say? It bothers me when the guys get to acting like the broad. Back in, back when a nigga want to sell, they reach for the weapon. Nowadays, niggas reach for a record. Yeah, that's what he said.

[01:30:40] Good times, people. Let's go. My prediction for 2027 is that all interviews will be in person, and it's because of AI. This new AI tool just dropped. It's called Griffin, and literally it looks like a real person. This is not some type of AI face filter. This lady above, she's AI, and the guy is having a full [01:31:00] conversation with her.

[01:31:00] And on the guy's side, when somebody else walks in the screen, the AI makes a comment about his jacket. So everything is gonna be changing in 2027. Remote interviews were already on their way out because there's AI tools that people use that give you the answers during the interview, especially for tech jobs.

[01:31:17] There's also AI that changes your face. You could be a Black person and it makes you look like you're a completely different race. And so companies are already having a hard time trusting if it's actually you on the other side of the screen and if you actually know what you're talking about. AI is just making the job market 10 times harder, and you definitely need to warn your older family members about this type of AI 'cause they might get scammed because of these type of tools.

[01:31:42] So I agree with the scam part, but in my experience, what they would do is instead of relying on the first interview, they'll give you assessment. And like, so I did assessment where I had to download something, "Hey, we wanna watch your screen. This thing gonna have your camera the whole time and you can't Google, so we gonna watch everything you're doing so you didn't use [01:32:00] AI to help you."

[01:32:02] I'm pretty sure all the different, with the Zooms, Teams, all these other tools, they're gonna start building out functionalities to look for, or they're gonna start making people, "Hey, I need you to install this on your machine when you interview with us." I think that

[01:32:24] If a company only experiences one or two cases of this, it's not that big of a deal for them because they, it's one or two. But when they start experiencing this in the tens, the 20s, the 100s within their organization, then that's when they actually have to invest in a solution, like something like verify your identity midday for everybody, and it becomes a inconvenience for everybody in the company because I'm who I say I am, you not who you say you are, but I still have to go through the same checks as you.

[01:32:52] Yeah. Or they start doing background checks before they even interview people. Let's make sure this person's who they are, say they are. Imagine. Hey, this is what [01:33:00] it showed you look like. This was you looking on the camera. This is not you. And that's also been something, too, that's been highlighted. Yep. Yep.

[01:33:06] So between doing that, uh, it could be interesting. But that's also, uh, another reason why being on camera is important in these re- in this remote space that we're in. But that's another reason why I got character, 'cause I used to have to dress in three-piece suits and go interview in person. I'm not mad at people having to interview in person, but I just hate that all...

[01:33:26] that the bad apples are spoiling it for the bunch is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I look at it, development. I mean, if you like that, you like that, whether you in person or virtual. And that's why it's beneficial to having a personal brand, 'cause if you got enough stuff of what you look like, when you get on the thing, they already know it's you.

[01:33:41] Yep. Or if you share some of you with the team before that, they already know it's you. You don't have to worry about that. So what do I know? I's only been doing it for a, a couple of years and been- Girl, please ... uber successful. But, um, that's that. And I think, I think the last one is, uh, our favorite girl, Miss Key, was talking [01:34:00] about, uh, T Help Desk and why she don't like it, even though she working at T Help Desk, allegedly.

[01:34:05] What she look like? The girl that talk crazy, with her eyes real big. I re- we've reacted to her before. Her right here. She talk real fast, too

[01:34:18] At work and you call the IT support team and you get me, and you're like, "How can you help me with this issue? I'm having an issue." And I remote in and I'm like, "Oh, this is what you're supposed to do." And you tell me, "Oh, I don't think that's the right answer." How much further am I supposed to help you?

[01:34:33] Since you got your degree and you know everything. And then when I turn around and apply the fix that I said it was, and it works, and your response is, "Oh, that doesn't seem like it will work because I Googled that already

[01:34:50] Thank you? What happened to that? What happened to that I have a YouTube video coming on my page. [01:35:00] Please check it out because I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here. This is the end. This is it. But no, really, support my YouTube 'cause we gotta move on

[01:35:15] Oh God My patients

[01:35:26] You know, women like her, I don't know why she's doing IT help desk, but I feel like they be having, like, dudes on the low that be, uh, that be paying for, uh, her to do, get stuff done. Because I think she in DC, so that's what I think about her. I don't know her. Um, she'd actually be pretty cool to get on the show.

[01:35:42] I may try to do that. I gotta see who I know that knows her. But yeah, like I said, my last days of doing help desk, the lady was trying to tell me... I was giving her a password, she was telling me it's a username, so I hung up on her. Please. 'Cause- I... But it's like, help desk is like customer service. It tr- like, [01:36:00] people are irritating.

[01:36:01] Ugh. But I mean, I was like, "What's the worst they gonna do, fire me?" I was like, "I'm already gone." Yeah. But I did see, like, a TikTok of someone say, when you know you finna leave, and you in customer service, and you start getting spicy back with the customers. Facts. A- ain't nothing better than, like, you knowing you just in the office for two weeks.

[01:36:17] Like, it's like, "Hey, they don't even know I'm finna leave." Like, you just, you in a good mood for two weeks. For two weeks solid. Right. So, I don't know. Like, it's a lot of stuff, because it be simple stuff. Like, it it was... Oh, it was on, um, Threads. Some, some, uh, pale lady was talking about how IT didn't know how to do they jobs when IT people came in, killed her in the comments like, "Hey, did you try turning it off and turning it on?"

[01:36:42] That's the number one answer right there. "Hey, hey, turn it off, turn it on. If it's still messing up, call us back." Like, my stuff is simple. "Hey, they, they, they can't get any emails." Oh, they on the wrong exchange server. Oh, they can't get any more emails. Oh, they have too many big files in their Outlook, so they don't have any [01:37:00] more application storage.

[01:37:01] Let's archive this stuff and see what happens. I used to love them, 'cause you have to move everything sorted by the, uh, sorted by file and, uh- Size ... size, and then wait for it to finish. So, I used to love that right there, especially when I had the person I knew that was in, like, a depth of being tech- uh, technical.

[01:37:18] Best times ever. So, I don't know, man, I, I enjoyed all them help desk days. Shout out to my help desk people working 24 by seven. Hopefully with these, with these people not being to outsource a lot of them IT jobs to India, that y'all get hired, and get some experience, and work your way on up, so, so. We should've ended this with Never Would Have Made It, the bounce version.

[01:37:40] Never would have made it. What you got anything you wanna tell the people? Um.

[01:37:50] Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Nope. You don't have nothing to tell, tell people? Mm-mm. Okay. I'ma, I'ma tell y'all one thing that the GOAT said. "A low highs [01:38:00] to women with no ties to men that I know well, that way there are no lies. You can thank me now for the info I give to you ninjas. I'm on the brink of influential."

[01:38:09] That's it. I'm gonna leave y'all with that. Until next time, until next week, we'll see y'all later. We out. Peace