Commerce as Sacred Symbol

[00:00:01] Phillip: Oh, shoot. {laughter} I'm gonna make tea.

[00:01:30] Brian: Do it. On cam. Live on the pod.

[00:01:32] Phillip: Yeah. Gonna do it. I'm making tea.

[00:01:34] Brian: It's like Red Scare when they light up.

[00:01:36] Phillip: Oh, that's my favorite.

[00:01:37] Brian: That's like Phillip is the tea making.

[00:01:40] Phillip: Wait. What is Red Scare? What is Red Scare?

[00:01:45] Brian: What is Red scare?

[00:01:46] Phillip: You have to explain what Red Scare is.

[00:01:47] Brian: You don't know what Red Scare is.

[00:01:48] Phillip: I don't know what Red Scare is.

[00:01:49] Brian: Yes you do, you liar...

[00:01:53] Phillip: {laughter} Oh, gosh. 

[00:01:55] Brian: Dasha and Anna are listening to Future Commerce.

[00:01:59] Phillip: Yeah. That'd be fun.

[00:02:00] Brian: No... Oh, maybe.

[00:02:02] Phillip: I would love to do an episode of the pod where we're doing like the commerce implications of Sinners. I saw Sinners last night.

[00:02:14] Brian: I wanna see it.

[00:02:16] Phillip: It's a lot of commerce. There's a whole scene in Sinners, which we should go see.

[00:02:19] Brian: Which theater did you go to? We're in LA right now, if you didn't recognize our hotel room.

[00:02:24] Phillip: I went to the TCL man, like, the TCL Chinese theater.

[00:02:29] Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sweet.

[00:02:32] Phillip: So cool.

[00:02:32] Brian: That's fun. What a cool place to see.

[00:02:34] Phillip: Yeah. I saw it in one of the special formats. I saw it in the 35 mil' situation. Oh my gosh. And the sound was just...

[00:02:45] Brian: I might go tonight. I might have to go.

[00:02:50] Phillip: Okay. So this is not a spoiler, okay? Not a spoiler. 

[00:02:55] Brian: {laughter}. 

[00:02:55] Phillip: There is a... There's a solid two and a half minute little debate that happens in the movie about currency. So there is a...

[00:03:14] Brian: Love that.

[00:03:15] Phillip: In the period, right? So, the movie takes place in sort of the post-prohibition gangster Chicago era, but in the South.

[00:03:32] Brian: Pre-World War II?

[00:03:34] Phillip: Yeah, pre-World War II, like Capone era, okay? But this takes place in the South, And I can't say more than that.

[00:03:45] Brian: Sure.

[00:03:46] Phillip: Okay. And what you see is, you see a bunch of scenes. There's like a whole hour that sets up the whole setting of the film.

[00:04:02] Brian: Yeah.

[00:04:03] Phillip: So you get a lot of marketplace.

[00:04:04] Brian: Love that.

[00:04:05] Phillip: You get a marketplace, you get shopping, right? You get a general store, you get a lot of like the commerce of Sinners. And you get the... Then you get the implications of currency in the film.

[00:04:23] Brian: Ooh. Oh, we do need to do a full deep-dive.

[00:04:25] Phillip: I feel like this is an After Dark, almost, of us.

[00:04:29] Brian: Yeah. Subscribe to Future Commerce Plus, then you can hear our take on Sinners.

[00:04:32] Phillip: This would be such a great breakdown because there's a scene where you get this real back and forth of should they – and this is not a spoiler – there's some people who, basically... There's the company store money.

[00:04:57] Brian: Okay. Got it.

[00:04:58] Phillip: Do you remember this whole, there's like an era of the company store, right? Where you only got paid in money to go shop at the company store?

[00:05:05] Brian: Yeah. It still sort of exists in some companies.

[00:05:09] Phillip: I think, isn't that illegal?

[00:05:11] Brian: Oh, no. They have, not all of their stuff.

[00:05:15] Phillip: Right.

[00:05:15] Brian: I guess, not like all their stuff, but you can get paid in bucks for merch shops.

[00:05:22] Phillip: That's true. Yeah. You get bucks to the merch shop. This is a... 

[00:05:27] Brian: It's a perk.

[00:05:27] Phillip: Yeah. This is beyond perk. This is like, they're trying to tender it as currency.

[00:05:31] Brian: It's like Hershey...almost.

[00:05:33] Phillip: Right, this is like wooden nickels.

[00:05:36] Brian: Wooden nickels.

[00:05:37] Phillip: Right, you know what I mean?

[00:05:38] Brian: Ugh, that sounds scary.

[00:05:40] Phillip: So, I think that this is a fascinating thing. And I'm like, there's a part of me that––there's a piece to be written for Future Commerce Insiders about not just that period, but the implications and the importance of it. And so what you get is there's a high-low.

[00:05:54] Brian: A Bitcoin of their day. 

[00:05:54] Phillip: {laughter}. 

[00:05:57] Brian: Wooden nickels.

[00:05:58] Phillip: There's real high-low. And people who've seen the film are gonna know what I'm talking about. You get a high-low moment within a very, very concentrated part of the film, of the wood, and, sort of, the gold. Like you get a very expansive... There's levels of currency that are all at play at the same time. And so you get, it is sort of like a heaven and hell, like...

[00:06:28] Brian: Wow.

[00:06:29] Phillip: There's a lot of symbolism in the film. Very, very cool. And, so, you can see how my brain works in the teasing out of all of the...

[00:06:37] Brian: I'll take the wooden nickels in this movie because you can fasten them into little wooden bullets. Shoot them at the vampires.

[00:06:44] Phillip: Ooh, spoiler. Welcome to Future Commerce. This week, we're here for the Triple Whale Whalies. In fact, we're speaking in just two hours. So we'll be on stage with Bryan Cano of True Classic, who, I would say is a true believer.

[00:07:03] Brian: He is, man. We just got breakfast with him. Love Bryan.

[00:07:08] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:07:08] Brian: Good name.

[00:07:09] Phillip: Oh, man. Great name. Great name. He's really talking the culture and commerce angle. And I think we had a long conversation this morning at breakfast about how you get to a certain phase of growth in a business where you sort of tap out on the tips and tricks and tactics of meta growth. And then you realize that what brung you there isn't gonna take you into the future. And then you have to realize that actually cultural intelligence, cultural awareness and the like, the things we've been talking about is what will actually help you to shape the future.

[00:07:50] Brian: Totally, because then once you hit the limit with your product, you start to look at category expansion and then you really have to ask the "why" questions. Because if you don't, you're just building entirely separate businesses, basically. There's gotta be something that ties them together. There has to be a story. There has to be lore. And so if you can do that, that will help you actually become a cultural brand, a brand that doesn't just play into the culture, but actually drives and changes behavior within culture, drives new culture.

[00:08:25] Phillip: Are you watching? If you're watching on the YouTube, I'm folding this hanky.

[00:08:28] Brian: I was... I got distracted for a second.

[00:08:31] Phillip: I'm trying not to make noise on the thing. Do you steep your tea this long?

[00:08:37] Brian: I steep my tea infinitely.

[00:08:40] Phillip: Really? How do you do that?

[00:08:41] Brian: I just keep drinking it. I don't know.

[00:08:43] Phillip: That's wild.

[00:08:44] Brian: It's one sip at a time.

[00:08:46] Phillip: I've got this hanky that I bought from the LACMA, the LA County Museum of Art. And this is a piece called Eyes of Mine from Yayoi Kasuama. And it's a reproduction of an environmental art painting, which I thought was really, really cool.

[00:09:13] Brian: Got a lot of the Future Commerce eye on it.

[00:09:15] Phillip: That's kinda why I bought it. {laughter} 

[00:09:18] Brian: {laughter} 

[00:09:18] Phillip: Also, because it was, this is screen print on linen. It lists the size in centimeters. And I was like, oh, that's gonna be... So, 40 centimeters by 40 centimeters. So I picked it up.

[00:09:34] Brian: You said sinnermeters.

[00:09:34] Phillip: I said sinnermeters. It's in my brain right now. I picked it up. I was like, this is gonna be perfect. I'm American. Forty centimeters, not big enough to actually tie around the neck is like a kerchief. So there's that.

[00:09:49] Brian: It's a pocket square.

[00:09:50] Phillip: It is almost a pocket square. I think I could actually do something with it if I like tied it a specific way. Anyway, it's now my...

[00:09:57] Brian: Do it around your wrist.

[00:09:57] Phillip: It's tea towel. I think the wrist thing, I'm too old to pull off.

[00:10:03] Brian: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Phillip: Maybe.

[00:10:04] Brian: I don't know.

[00:10:05] Phillip: Maybe.

[00:10:06] Brian: You know what? Was it Emily Siegel that said that youth culture is sort of dead? 

[00:10:12] Phillip: Dead.

[00:10:12] Brian: Yeah. You can be whatever you want whenever you want, Phillip.

[00:10:15] Phillip: I'm into DIY right now. I was talking about this with Erica on the team who heads up events and...

[00:10:21] Brian: She crashes at DIY. Oh my word.

[00:10:23] Phillip: Yes.

[00:10:24] Brian: So does Erin, Erin DeCruz, our Head of Operations. We've got a very, very creative team, like unbelievably creative team.

[00:10:32] Phillip: Yes, for sure. We've been, there's this whole like, well, I think also DIY is very I don't know if it's like tariff coded, but...

[00:10:43] Brian: Yeah.

[00:10:43] Phillip: Maybe a little bit.

[00:10:44] Brian: Kinda.

[00:10:45] Phillip: But I've been really into DIY lately.

[00:10:50] Brian: Recession indicator.

[00:10:51] Phillip: It's a recession indicator.

[00:10:52] Brian: Just kidding.

[00:10:53] Phillip: Tariff recession indication.

[00:10:54] Brian: Who knows? We're in a bull market right now, Phillip.

[00:10:57] Phillip: Kind of a well, I mean, is that a thing?

[00:11:02] Brian: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the Wall Street Journal just told me we're in a bull market.

[00:11:07] Phillip: For like, one day on the back of one announcement. By the way...

[00:11:10] Brian: I don't know. It's been it's been many days in a row now.

[00:11:13] Phillip: Okay. So we're up over now the the the tariff day. Okay. Fix this in time, May 14. Yes. For one moment at one point in time. I'm really into DIY and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you DIY.

[00:11:28] Brian: DIY. {laughter}

[00:11:31] Phillip: Terrible. I was talking with Erica. I found these shorts that I fell in love with. So this is wanna talk about Instagram performance marketing.

[00:11:46] Brian: Oh, boy.

[00:11:47] Phillip: I fell in love with these shorts, and it all started going back a ways with being targeted for Instagram pants. Okay. So I have this running joke on Twitter that if I'm being targeted with pants on Instagram, I can't afford them. Because every pair of pants that I get targeted with by...

[00:12:15] Brian: $300 bucks

[00:12:15] Phillip: $300. I can't afford those pants. This is like a running joke now. Oh, Descendant of Thieves, that's the brand.

[00:12:22] Brian: Gotcha.

[00:12:23] Phillip: They're $280 pants, but they're like a wide cut pant and they're cropped. So they hit middle of the calf a bit. They sort of look like a boxer pant. Boxers had really long...

[00:12:38] Brian: Long shorts.

[00:12:39] Phillip: Shorts, basically.

[00:12:40] Brian: Totally.

[00:12:40] Phillip: Right?

[00:12:41] Brian: I forget what... There's a term for these that's like in the women's category that I'm trying to remember.

[00:12:45] Phillip: Capris.

[00:12:46] Brian: Capris, thank you.

[00:12:47] Phillip: Right, so it looked really cool. I thought they looked cool. Actually, when I was in New York last year for VISIONS, I walked by a Descendant of Thieves and I went and tried some on, they looked cool. I'm not paying $300 for a pair of pants. So I'm a founder right now. I can't be doing stuff like that. So, I keep getting retargeted. I guarantee that they've spent more than $300 to try to acquire me, guarantee. And I'm a good customer. I'm not clicking on their ads. Right?

[00:13:20] Brian: Sure. Maybe once.

[00:13:22] Phillip: Maybe once.

[00:13:22] Brian: To check them out.

[00:13:23] Phillip: Maybe. I've definitely thumb stopped on their ad on Instagram. I'm costing them money for sure. So but I'm in category. I'm like, I'm in market for a pair of pants like this.

[00:13:36] Brian: Sure.

[00:13:36] Phillip: So here's what I've done instead. I've gone to Goodwill.

[00:13:42] Brian: Yep.

[00:13:43] Phillip: And I've gotten a very large pair of pleated pants of like four or five pairs. And these are like really rad pleated trousers. They're like polo, right? Or they're, I don't know, I think one pair is like probably Hagar, which is like not the nicest thing, but they're all like wool or they're like 100% cotton. They're like really nice, they have a liner, they're something like that. They're $5, Brian, they're $6. I tailored them myself.

[00:14:18] Brian: What?

[00:14:18] Phillip: I did them, I found the right length and I took them in at the waist and I like hem taped them myself and they look awesome.

[00:14:25] Brian: You're a DI guy.

[00:14:28] Phillip: I'm a DIY guy. So that's my DIY journey. And Erica just did this too. There's this collab that just happened that's blowing up right now, and I'm trying to remember what it was. That was, like, a flip flop collab that was blowing up.

[00:14:52] Brian: It's so funny when Daisy...

[00:14:53] Phillip: The Havaianas.

[00:14:54] Brian: Oh, Havaianas. Those are cool.

[00:14:55] Phillip: Yeah. I'm gonna say it wasn't Dolce and Gabbana. It's it looks like it has, like, thumbtacks all over it. Have you seen these?

[00:15:07] Brian: Probably not.

[00:15:08] Phillip: She was really into them. She anyway, she...

[00:15:11] Brian: I know Havaianas.

[00:15:12] Phillip: Yeah. She DIY'd them herself.

[00:15:14] Brian: Nice.

[00:15:15] Phillip: And he was walking around with them. People were like super complimenting her.

[00:15:18] Brian: Yeah. When we had Daisy Alioto on our podcast, she talked about how she DIY ed a dress as well. Are we into DIY like fashion? This reminds me of like Nasty Gal...

[00:15:27] Phillip: Did we ever leave it? I think is the question.

[00:15:29] Brian: Maybe. I think we did for a minute.

[00:15:33] Phillip: What about Nasty Gal?

[00:15:34] Brian: Oh, well that's what she did. She took vintage dresses and she like tore them up. Yeah.

[00:15:40] Phillip: Do you know who does this a lot and I think gave me a lot of license to feel like no matter who you are or where you're from...

[00:15:51] Brian: What story are you telling me right now?

[00:15:52] Phillip: Or what you did. No. Grace Clark is like a like commensurate DIYer.

[00:16:01] Brian: Nice. Congrats to Grace Clark. Who's over at Shopify now.

[00:16:05] Phillip: That's right.

[00:16:06] Brian: Yeah. We're very excited for her.

[00:16:08] Phillip: Congratulations. I think she said their first head of community. Is that right?

[00:16:11] Brian: I think so. I think that's what she said.

[00:16:13] Phillip: Well, today, I want to talk a little bit...

[00:16:17] Brian: About the Pope?

[00:16:18] Phillip: About the Pope.

[00:16:19] Brian: I think that sounds like a fun topic.

[00:16:21] Phillip: I think we could talk at length about the Pope today.

[00:16:24] Brian: Vatican't?

[00:16:25] Phillip: Vatican't believe these prices.

[00:16:27] Brian: That was a good joke. You got a lot of love on that joke.

[00:16:30] Phillip: I did. I did. I also want to hit on a couple other news items. Tariffs get a ninety day reprieve.

[00:16:41] Brian: And we are back in the positive.

[00:16:44] Phillip: That's what's causing the market swing. Anything else?

[00:16:46] Brian: I actually have a hot take on that tariff swing.

[00:16:48] Phillip: Oh, okay.

[00:16:49] Brian: Yeah. I do. I do definitely wanna get into that.

[00:16:51] Phillip: Okay. I think there's also one or two other news items I think we could hit. For instance, you know, we had a piece right around the Star Wars day or May 4th where I think we were sort of drawing some parallels around the movies being back.

[00:17:20] Brian: They are they are back. Right. This could be the biggest box office here in history. But I think it could be record breaking that the quality of the films, like, it kicked off with Minecraft, and it hasn't looked back. I think the next MI, Mission Impossible movie, whatever it MI seven part two.

[00:17:41] Phillip: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.

[00:17:43] Brian: And the guy who directed Maverick, Top Gun Maverick's coming back with another movie. I mean, this could be insane. This could be the wildest movie season we've ever seen.

[00:17:54] Phillip: So I think that is a big docket today. So where do we wanna start?

[00:17:59] Brian: You wanna start with tariffs real quick?

[00:18:01] Phillip: I think that's the easiest thing.

[00:18:02] Brian: Yeah. Okay. So ninety day reprieve. Stock market jumps back up. Everyone's feeling positive right now.

[00:18:11] Phillip: Brokered in Switzerland.

[00:18:13] Brian: Brokered in Switzerland.

[00:18:15] Phillip: Because I feel like that's...

[00:18:17] Brian: Neutral grounds.

[00:18:19] Phillip: Old cold war, like Trump thinking

[00:18:22] Brian: Totally.

[00:18:22] Phillip: You know, this is how we do things. Go to Geneva.

[00:18:26] Brian: Gen X is back.

[00:18:28] Phillip: Which is one of our predictions. 

[00:18:30] Brian: Yes.

[00:18:31] Phillip: Which was the rise of Gen X. Like, this is such a Gen X mode of thinking.

[00:18:34] Brian: It is. Totally. Right. I mean, I kinda love it. It's like got a little classic ring to it actually. But here's my really, really hot take, which is what if and I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing. What if tariffs are functioning exactly as Trump intended them to function as?

[00:18:54] Phillip: Oh my gosh. You're in the four d chess camp?

[00:18:57] Brian: So not that I'm super familiar with The Art of the Deal, but like in The Art of the Deal, one of the things to do to set the stage for good deal making is just to cause absolute chaos and create as much thought as possible, fear, uncertainty and doubt. And like, just get to a point where people are no longer trying to make the best deal, they're just trying to make a deal because they're worried about the end outcome. If there is no fear, uncertainty and doubt, all they're gonna do is try to get the best deal they can. They're gonna play hardball as hard as they possibly can. But when there is like a lot of like chaos and they don't know what's gonna happen next, then they're just looking to cut a deal. And that's kind of what it feels like right now. It feels like there are a set of countries out there that are going to be willing to just cut some kind of a deal. And it won't be everyone, but it will be certain countries. Now, again, I'm not making a judgment on like the strategy in general, like whether it's gonna be good for America or bad for America, good for the world or bad for the world, But I am saying that this may have been intended. This is the outcome that he was looking for.

[00:20:15] Phillip: I'm not saying that it's not intended. I'm saying this is the outcome is raise external revenues. Right?

[00:21:32] Brian: Yep. We have record tariff and duties.

[00:21:37] Phillip: Well, yeah, of course. Because we haven't had tariffs like this before.

[00:21:41] Brian: Right.

[00:21:41] Phillip: We also have record uncertainty and a lot of frustration too. So I think the live coding of the economy is the thing that's somewhat difficult.

[00:21:58] Brian: Yeah. I think that's intentional.

[00:22:00] Phillip: I understand. Yeah. I believe you're right. I believe you're right.

[00:22:04] Brian: Yeah.

[00:22:07] Phillip: So, yeah. Agree.

[00:22:08] Brian: Did you say live coding of the economy or vibe coding?

[00:22:11] Phillip: Vibe of the economy? It's almost like they're the same thing.

[00:22:16] Brian: Yeah. Basically.

[00:22:17] Phillip: They're kind of the same thing.

[00:22:18] Brian: Yeah.

[00:22:18] Phillip: I was likening this to, I had dinner with a partner on Monday night here in LA, and we were commiserating over this about like how frustrating it was. Also a fitting bookend because the day of the ninety day pause was the day we had dinner. And we had had a dinner in LA on the day that the 145% tariff was announced.

[00:22:41] Brian: Yeah.

[00:22:43] Phillip: And we, it was like, what a bookend. We were in LA that day and we were in LA the day that it ended.

[00:22:49] Brian: It's only like a less than a month apart.

[00:22:51] Phillip: What a whiplash, right?

[00:22:53] Brian: Yes.

[00:22:54] Phillip: And I said, you know, the wild thing is thirty and ten, it's actually ten and ten, but the 20% on fentanyl plus, any fentanyl based, you know, 20% tariff, fentanyl based, you know, tariff based duty plus 10% on reciprocal for any country with a trade deficit, like it equates to 30%.

[00:23:21] Brian: Yep.

[00:23:22] Phillip: So then China levies at 10%. We're at a place now where 30% seems like that's a thing that can stick around.

[00:23:33] Brian: Totally.

[00:23:34] Phillip: Right? 10% now seems to be the baseline, it will be the baseline for everybody. And then you look at The UK deal. The UK deal also opens up and for those who aren't familiar, The UK tariff deal is kind of landmark, and it's the one that we should probably be talking about more because that trade deal opens up a lot of access and market access for American exports, especially in agriculture, American beef, ethanol, and virtually all of the products that we could not export before. And this was, as much as we've joked about the beautiful American beef that we couldn't send over to The UK, This is kind of a big deal.

[00:24:21] Brian: Totally.

[00:24:22] Phillip: It just was...

[00:24:24] Brian: Now everyone else can get fat as well.

[00:24:29] Phillip: But this would never have happened in any other environment.

[00:24:31] Brian: That's right. If he hadn't shook things up, then we wouldn't be exporting beef.

[00:24:36] Phillip: And in in no other way, I don't want it to be interpreted to say that I am condoning the methods under which this happened.

[00:24:45] Brian: No. I don't. That's what I clarified for myself as well. I think the jury's out. That's honestly that is the truth.

[00:24:53] Phillip: I don't think the jury's out.

[00:24:55] Brian: You think it's just bad?

[00:24:57] Phillip: Well, I think that sowing distrust now, we will reap a diversified global monetary policy in twenty five to thirty years.

[00:25:12] Brian: But what do you think about the normalization of tariffs and like the I mean, trade things happen all the time. You think people are actually gonna remember in twenty five to thirty years how this went down?

[00:25:22] Phillip: Yes. You look at BRICS and the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and other I don't think any other economic superpowers, I think alliances that lie outside of The US monetary dominance and US and the dollar being the world reserve currency, in twenty five years, that may no longer be the case. And this moment is the moment when all other economies start to say we need to diversify away from The United States.

[00:25:53] Brian: I think that's really like narrow perspective on this. It takes into account only economics and not all of the other things that have made America dominant. If you just think about America as an economically dominant player, I think you miss out on, It's like specialization. Experts are really bad at predicting the future because they only look at one path.

[00:26:16] Phillip: Right.

[00:26:16] Brian: And they don't factor in all of the other things, technology and whatever it is that could absolutely flip how we're looked at. And also some of those countries that you just mentioned benefited immensely from this trade deal. There are winners and losers in this.

[00:26:34] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:26:35] Brian: And India, I mean, which is on the rise, probably way faster than China in many ways, they've actually a lot of people shifted production from China to India. India is actually maybe coming out on top and feeling very happy about all of this.

[00:26:53] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:26:54] Brian: And so while certain countries may continue to harbor resentment about this in twenty five years, especially countries that are dominated by a single party that have longer memories, like Russia or China or whatever, but they already harbor resentment against us.

[00:27:16] Phillip: That's true.

[00:27:17] Brian: I don't know. I don't know, man. I think the jury's out, and a lot of the initial stock market dropping was, it wasn't even based on the outcome of the tariffs. It was based on the fear of what the tariffs would do to us. They hadn't even taken effect before things started dropping. So in many ways, a lot of the initial parts of this aren't, they're not reflective of the end state, and they're also not reflective of the full impact. And then and I also think that what I'm seeing right now is that Trump is not ideologically aligned on this. This feels very pragmatic to me and I think he was using the ideology as part of the fear, uncertainty and doubt. And I could be wrong about all of this, and again, I'm not necessarily condoning the approach because it doesn't feel like we're being good partners to some people.

[00:28:25] Phillip: To me, it feels like you ever see a Charlie Chaplin or like a Mr Bean where they're, like, ambling their way through calamity and they narrowly escape...

[00:30:33] Brian: What I'm saying is that's the...

[00:30:35] Phillip: Because that's how it feels to me.

[00:30:36] Brian: That's how it feels. I'm saying my hot take is actually this was intentional. And people have been saying for like...

[00:30:43] Phillip: Yeah. We're intentionally stoking all of these... We are creating an environment where we can extract value out of partners all over the world, adversaries and allies alike, so that we can make more. So we can raise more revenue for probably a very good cause, which is The US has a lot of financial problems. And I do believe that what is the number $37,000,000,000,000 amount of debt, US national debt, and a $2,000,000,000,000 deficit and budget deficit, those are things that are absolutely existential and important for my kids and my grandkids and their kids. Those are important things somebody has to... I had my existential crisis a couple episodes ago about over consumption and these are important things.

[00:31:42] Brian: Yeah.

[00:31:43] Phillip: Somebody has to do it at some point. Somebody has to do something. And maybe this is the, like, it does hurt to rip a band aid off. But I don't... Anyway.

[00:31:55] Brian: No. And I think you're you're dead on. I think this that's the other thing is our over consumption is is driven by our overdependence on cheap production that if honestly, if that production existed in The US, we would condemn it at the highest level.

[00:32:12] Phillip: That's true. If you want to watch though, to listen expert like Ray Dalio and you read a book like The Changing World Order to hear him explain it, what typically tends to happen is you have two global superpowers fighting for world dominance in a global superpower hegemony, and they're battling it out. And what typically happens is a third power rises while the two are at conflict. So in your example of India's rise, in his analysis, in India would rise while The US and China are battling it out. But while we're all having this academic debate, in the meanwhile, what we're actually seeing sort of play out is people are looking at short term changes in the stock market as validation as to whether things are working or not.

[00:33:12] Brian: Right. Exactly. I'm saying that's like...

[00:33:14] Phillip: And so three months ago, things aren't working because they're breaking, and now things are working because they it's four d chess. So I don't know. We'll never know on short term horizon.

[00:33:26] Brian: And I'm sure there are a lot of people that are listening to this that are like, Brian, you're crazy. This is destroying my business. It still is even with the reprieve. That's right. And I'm not denying any of that.

[00:33:37] Phillip: And people are gonna place massive, massive purchase orders right now, and they're gonna get inventory right now while they have more certainty now than they did.

[00:33:45] Brian: Right. Which means there will be I mean, we talked about the June 1 deadline. Guess what? Christmas is back, baby.

[00:33:52] Phillip: Yeah. You can have more than one doll. Yeah. Yeah. Also, you pit what Ray Dalio says, what we should do is we should probably tee up a clip. Ray Dalio at the All In Summit, right, a couple years ago talking about, you know, the rise of of India versus China.

[00:34:09] Brian: Yeah.

[00:34:09] Phillip: Right? You you queue that clip up. Right? And then you pit that against Howard Lutnick talking about how your grandchildren and your grandchildren's grandchildren are gonna be working in factories in The United States. And these don't seem like beautiful futures.

[00:34:23] Brian: No.

[00:34:23] Phillip: It doesn't seem like we're painting a wonderful future for the future of what we should be fighting for in The United States is that what we're trying to advocate for is that, you know, we're getting into a massive trade dispute so that we can go back to working in factories in The United States? Why? So that India can become the dominant superpower? We can move on.

[00:34:55] Brian: No, no, We can move on. I guess my last point there is like that ideological move that like there's a whole set of people out there in America that want to bring manufacturing back to The US. The reasoning is like, what do we even own if we don't have it? You know what I mean? But that ideology, I'm actually, I'm saying that I don't think that Trump even cares. Maybe Lutnick does. I don't think that Trump cares about it all. I think he cares about pragmatic deal making.

[00:35:31] Phillip: Okay. I would like to point out to everybody that if you had been paying attention to Future Commerce seven months ago, Future Commerce wrote a piece in October of 2024 about the importance of the next commerce department and how we started predicting who the next commerce secretary would be. I think we had pointed to Linda McMahon, Keith Kratch, and some others as potential nominees. We were so far ahead of the importance of the next commerce department and how it would be the most important.

[00:36:06] Brian: The most important. 

[00:36:07] Phillip: The most important department in the administration. You can say everything you want about Besson and treasury, but who has been the face of this administration and the tariffs and also who has driven the most revenue in this plan, right? It wasn't DOGE.

[00:36:24] Brian: Right.

[00:36:25] Phillip: It's going to be the external revenue department. It's going to be commerce. And that to me is Future Commerce has been out ahead of this since before the elections even took place. We have been talking about the future of the commerce department being the future of commerce.

[00:36:48] Brian: Future of the government.

[00:36:49] Phillip: Yeah of policy. We've been talking about this since I think we were talking about a Raimondo ticket back in June of last year. So we have been talking about the shaping of policy in the Commerce Department for ages. If you are not a member of Future Commerce Plus, you are missing out on policy content and you should be ahead of it.

[00:37:12] Brian: It's real. There's some credible analysis in there. So And if you want more than analysis, you gotta subscribe.

[00:37:18] Phillip: And we're about to wrap up by the way. We're eighty days in on Lutnick's first hundred days. 

[00:37:23] Brian: Yep.

[00:37:24] Phillip: And we are about to wrap up our coverage of his first one hundred days. So if you haven't already, you should go subscribe so you can see the the final wrap up there.

[00:37:35] Brian: And I think the final point on that is like, if you look at Gina Raimando versus Howard Lutnick, one of the things that's very obvious is like Trump picked someone who was already very visible, that was already very active on social just like he was and was going to be in many ways the face of a lot of his policies. That was actually why he ended up picking Lutnick.

[00:37:55] Phillip: I think so. Yeah.

[00:37:56] Brian: His his social presence and visibility.

[00:38:00] Phillip: I think what's really interesting is that the...

[00:38:03] Brian: Even if Lutnick's not great on cam. {laughter}

[00:38:07] Phillip: Oh my word, to say the least. A lot of people in political media were painting the commerce role as the consolation prize. And we wrote a piece around it, you know, as it being no, actually treasury is the old guard, right? Commerce department, especially in the light of external revenue, that might actually be the future. And Lutnick, I think is actually trying to prove that that's to be the case. I think he's left a lot to be desired in the PR angle of it all.

[00:38:44] Brian: It doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter. Because of how visible he is. It's not all PR is good PR. The visibility is the key to the power expansion.

[00:39:00] Phillip: Yeah. Let's talk about power expansion.

[00:39:04] Brian: Do we jump into the Pope?

[00:39:07] Phillip: I think the Pope is the actual, a perfect segue here. Because I think that the... Do you think that the choice of an American Pope is a strategic and calculated one? I mean, obviously this is all speculation. Do you think the choice of an American Pope is a strategic and calculated because of this environment that we're in right now?

[00:39:38] Brian: It may be, I know less about Cardinal's viewpoints on how to position the church. However, I do think the technological environment we're in was actually why they may have picked him. Because as much as like Trump's policy and the American environment is affecting the whole world, technology is infecting the world even more. And so I do believe that, Pope Leo's viewpoint on technology and how to address it was one of the factors. And he actually picked that name purposefully to harken back to the last Pope Leo who was dealing with a massive technological change and straddled sort of the capitalism versus socialism argument very, very, very well, at least according to the Catholic church. Wrote some very important pieces around that and set policy around that. I think that this Pope in some ways, I mean, we're probably looking at twenty years of this Pope could be one of the most influential Popes we've seen since John Paul.

[00:41:10] Phillip: I mean, I would hope so. I will read from Wikipedia. So I'm gonna read from Wikipedia about Pope Leo the thirteenth because I think that it really well defines pretty succinctly what Leo the thirteenth was known for. And also, if the fiction of what's the name of the film that just came out?

[00:41:43] Brian: Conclave.

[00:41:44] Phillip: If the fiction of Conclave is to be believed, every cardinal has like a Pope name that they already have like picked it out for themselves or something.

[00:41:58] Brian: I could see that.

[00:41:58] Phillip: Who knows? I mean, I'm sure you think about it. That would be a thing you think about, right?

[00:42:02] Brian: Of course. Right. You have to. These are humans.

[00:42:05] Phillip: Sure. Right. So this is what is to be said about Pope Leo the thirteenth who became pope on the 02/20/1878 until his death in July of 1903. So he was well known for his intellectualism and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic church with regard to modern thinking. In his 1891 encyclical, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions while affirming the rights of property and free enterprise opposing both socialism and laissez faire capitalism. And with that encyclical, he became popularly called the social pope and the pope of the workers having created the foundations for modern thinking and the social doctrines of the Catholic church influencing his successors. Upon his election, he immediately sought to revive Thomism, the theological system of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas wishing to make it the official political, theological, and philosophical foundation of the Catholic church. As a result, he sponsored the Edito Leonina in 1879. I think if we could go on a little bit deeper into that, because there's a lot of theological underpinnings there, but I think we take for granted how important that is in the modern context.

[00:43:35] Brian: Yes. Totally. One hundred percent. And I've been saying this for a long time. I wrote about this, I think I said on the podcast, but I think we're gonna need an OSHA for the mind.

[00:43:44] Phillip: Was that on the main feed?

[00:43:46] Brian: I wrote about that in the...

[00:43:48] Phillip: Oh, you did? Yeah. This is a piece that you wrote.

[00:43:50] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I lose track of what I write where.

[00:43:53] Phillip: I can source it. But yeah.

[00:43:56] Brian: OSHA for the Mind, I think we've been stretching ourselves to meet machines where they're at, new language games, that's what it was...

[00:44:04] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:44:05] Brian: And we've just been pushing ourselves to operate like machines, First with our bodies in the Industrial Revolution, second Industrial Revolution, like our bodies got pushed to their limits because we were trying to keep up with machines and like do things at their level and it turns out we break down and we can't do that. We can't live that way. But we then took the machine to the computer and we've been trying to keep up with machines processing power and we have no OSHA for the mind. We have no way to think about how to stop thinking about work and how to take breaks. So I really believe that this next Pope will set some policy or some precedent for eventually expanding rights for worker for knowledge workers.

[00:45:02] Phillip: What I would love to get into is the piece that we put out.

[00:45:07] Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's keep going.

[00:45:09] Phillip: Well, what's really wild about this is that Alicia Esposito and I co authored a piece that we put out this past Friday, which was the day after he was actually elected to Pope Leo the fourteenth. And so we had a whole analysis, which I entitled, I Vatican't Believe These Prices, The Sacred Economics of Papal Transition. And what was really important about this piece is that the deep dive actually shows you something that we're sort of calling the sacramental economy is that you can measure economically the impact of the passing of a pope. And so a few things, we'll link it up for you to actually go into, this is 2,900 words on the economics of a papal passing. But from looking at from digital engagement to Vatican revenue, in 1978, you saw $20,000,000 in Vatican revenue alone between John Paul one and two. And then because there was actually three events that took place in 1978, it almost you go into the in the piece here, the Vatican had to put on three events. So you had two deaths and two conclaves and three popes in one year.

[00:46:56] Brian: {laughter} That's crazy.

[00:46:59] Phillip: It was a wild time. And so what you wound up doing is you also had like the shortest lived pope in that period. So what you wound up having to deal with in that time was you had influx and influx and influx of pilgrims coming in for that time, the infrastructure of the city was pretty much crumbling. So what they did was they allowed officially licensed merchandise, and they took a cut to help to offset it. They also set up tent cities and they took a cut from that as well. So, commerce actually comes in to help.

[00:47:43] Brian: Empower pilgrims.

[00:47:44] Phillip: Right, but to like uplift the economy, but also to help undergird the infrastructure in times like this. We saw just in the short period of Pope Francis's death to the election of Pope Leo the fourteenth, 14.2 million dollars in Vatican revenue and 7,000,000 streams of digital engagement. All of this is in the piece. So we have now, within seventy two hours of Francis's passing, we have searches for Rome bound flights, searched 250% according to Expedia. And this isn't just people looking to come in for the pilgrimage. It's just, "Oh, I should go to Italy this year."

[00:48:34] Brian: Yep.

[00:48:34] Phillip: Right? Accommodation queries jumped 35%. You have international searches. On the whole, just people looking to go search and travel abroad jumped 125. Then you have people, more than 140,000 people came to the city for the funeral procession alone.

[00:48:58] Brian: You realize this is a jubilee year as well.

[00:49:00] Phillip: It is. That's the other thing is it gets...

[00:49:03] Brian: Gets compounded.

[00:49:04] Phillip: When you look at that against other things like, there's a halo effect of old merch that begins to trend on marketplace sites like eBay, Mercari, Facebook Marketplace. Like old merch, vintage merch, like October 1995, Pope John Paul II's visit to New Jersey, that merch begins to trend to where those pieces either weren't listed before or they were going for pennies or a dollar, are now going for $40, 50, 60, 70 bucks a piece. This kind of thing is a wave of awareness that becomes a wave of commercial value. And so just this alone should tell you everything you need to know is that in 1978, when Pope John Paul the first died thirty three days into his papacy, souvenir vendors had to reprint that merchandise twice in six weeks. And if you contrast that with today, Shopify vendors selling Pope Francis merch saw 12 x jumps in conversion within forty eight hours of his death. So the analog world versus the digital world.

[00:50:24] Brian: And I think this is a huge point because actually, I mean, I know Conclave kind of played into this a little bit, but...

[00:50:32] Phillip: Great marketing campaign.

[00:50:35] Brian: The contentification of this process is unlike anything that a pope transition has ever seen. I remember it hitting the news moving from Benedict to Francis, right? There was news, but this has been a show. It has been like the most like streamed YouTubes, influencers... The video from the Vatican itself has been way higher quality than anything I've ever seen. And everything about it feels potentially contrary to what Pope Leo the fourteenth is gonna bring to the table around how to leverage technology. This is interesting to me. This is interesting to me. The process to get to this level of commercialization is maybe the very thing that Leo is going come in and be like, "Sacred things shouldn't be contentified."

[00:51:46] Phillip: Well, one would hope.

[00:51:47] Brian: We'll see. I mean, that's the vibe that I've picked up from him so far. Or maybe he's gonna say, "How do we leverage technology even more?" One of the two. I cannot actually figure it out. He clearly has strong thoughts on it. I really hope that he looks to another, well, my favorite Catholic of all time, Marshall McLuhan, {laughter} and some of the guidance that he helped provide to the Catholic church back in the 60s because he did. I don't think they listened to any of it.

[00:52:22] Phillip: Two more pieces of... Two more thoughts here and then I think there's like one bigger idea here. The way that we relate to these things, I think is magnified by our explainifier culture.

[00:52:40] Brian: Totally.

[00:52:41] Phillip: The way that content works today is like deep dive explainifiers.

[00:52:45] Brian: Yes.

[00:52:46] Phillip: Right? So if you, it could be in the form of podcasts, it could also be in the form of things like Conclave, it's drive to survive created F1 enthusiasts. Conclave created Catholic enthusiasts. We also have the trad wife and...

[00:53:05] Brian: I was gonna say, yeah, the Catholic trend has been on the rise for a while.

[00:53:09] Phillip: If we don't have those things, we don't have this, the rising Catholicism also is coming at a time where Christian nationalism is creating an apathy and a frustration towards evangelicalism.

[00:53:31] Brian: People are kicking back and they're saying, "Wait a minute, what if the church isn't supposed to just be American?"

[00:53:36] Phillip: Correct. Yeah. And so you have a lot of things all converging at the same time. And you have things like Conclave that actually explain how things work, but other people love to explain to other people how things work. So we used to live in a lower context society where something like F1 is on ESPN four, and you don't know how F1 works, and there's no commentary that actually explains it to a newcomer. Now we have access to something like Drive to Survive, which exists in a storytelling environment. And now you can explain and understand how F1 works, and now you understand storylines. Conclave exists in a fictional universe that gives you the same context.

[00:54:24] Brian: Yes. One hundred percent.

[00:54:24] Phillip: And it happens contemporaneously to the passing of a pope.

[00:54:29] Brian: This is lore building in a nutshell.

[00:54:30] Phillip: Exactly.

[00:54:31] Brian: In fact, this is coming up against like form. I talked about this in my Mythopoetic Brands article a ton. It doesn't really matter if it's fiction or not. If touching on the lore and oftentimes fiction will touch on deeper truths even better than the like very documentary style, which aren't even necessarily like true. They're giving a specific perspective and that's another thing I get into that article a lot, like how perspective impacts myth.

[00:54:58] Phillip: Even wilder beyond that, because you're talking about myth in brand too in there, is the way that we're relating here in this particular moment in the memes is in brands.

[00:55:13] Brian: It is. Totally.

[00:55:13] Phillip: Because he's an American pope.

[00:55:17] Brian: We're hitting on the Menards.

[00:55:20] Phillip: Exactly. He's the first Pope to have saved money at Menards.

[00:55:26] Brian: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:27] Phillip: Or the body and the blood. Like, it's the deep dish from Chicago.

[00:55:34] Brian: The Goose Island IPA.

[00:55:36] Phillip: Right. And these are the kind of things that we relate these moments and culture through commerce, because commerce is culture, right? It's the Americanization of St. Peter's Square is it's gonna be a Buckee's and a CVS, right?

[00:55:56] Brian: And a Walmart.

[00:55:56] Phillip: That is the way that we relate to culture is through the commerce experience of it when an American lens is applied.

[00:56:06] Brian: Totally.

[00:56:07] Phillip: Right?

[00:56:08] Brian: Totally.

[00:56:08] Phillip: In fact, the thing that we put into this article is the subreddit activation. Every subreddit has activated in the election of the Pope. Well, when you see Pope Leo on the watch subreddit, it's people trying to identify what watch he's wearing as he comes out to greet the people. It happens everywhere. Everyone is relating back to this moment through a lens of commerce.

[00:56:37] Brian: At least the Americans are.

[00:56:38] Phillip: Wow, that's right.

[00:56:39] Brian: Although I would actually say in many ways that's true across the world, it's just we look for the commercial elements more than anything else. Just because something's not commercial doesn't mean it's not commerce. {laughter}

[00:56:52] Phillip: That's true. I have put together the Chicago to the Vatican cultural synthesis.

[00:56:58] Brian: Oh, yeah. Let's go.

[00:56:59] Phillip: Because this is how my brain works. I think it comes together in six sort of ways.

[00:57:06] Brian: Lay it on me.

[00:57:07] Phillip: All comes together. It's through marketplace expressions, through commercial resonance, commercial implications, cultural intersections, digital engagement patterns, and meta modern symbolism. We don't have to get into all of them here. But they are on our full analysis, which is, like I said, 3,000 words over on futurecommerce.com. We'll link it down into the show notes. But if we just wanted to touch on a couple of them. On marketplace expressions, it is through those collectibles that we're starting to see pop up. It's like we're seeing like city flag mashups. People are like creating, like, a Vatican flag and a Chicago flag mashup. We're seeing restaurant special, like, papal menus. Right? We're seeing merchandise and digital participation or even, like, I don't know, fake merch, those sorts of things are like marketplace expressions.

[00:58:03] Brian: Yep.

[00:58:03] Phillip: Digital engagement patterns, I think we talked about it.

[00:58:05] Brian: Pope yes.

[00:58:06] Phillip: Yes. Pope yes. Yeah. We're seeing the like I said, the watch identification thread, streaming surge of Chicago based content. We're seeing people for instance, the The Bear memes. You see the the mashup of Conclave or you see all the, like, lotto balls sort of things, and then you see the envelope or the smoke, and then you see the envelope and it says, "Let it rip," those sorts of things. {laughter} And then just to like cherry pick one or two more here, it's like, meta modern symbolism is like, this is sort of our digital folk religion.

[00:58:53] Brian: It is. Yes. 

[00:58:54] Phillip: Like this is our new lore. This is our new storytelling devices, and it is kind of irony and sincerity being blended into like a paradoxical relationship.

[00:59:05] Brian: And you know what's really interesting about this is this is all very participatory. You could even call it slop potentially.

[00:59:13] Phillip: In many I mean, it's not AI generated always.

[00:59:16] Brian: No. But I mean, we had slop before AI.

[00:59:18] Phillip: That's true. Yes. We did.

[00:59:21] Brian: You could say it's slop. And I realized something that slop is often just participatory media. It is lo fi participatory media, and we can map this on McLuhan's Hot to Cool.

[00:59:36] Phillip: Totally.

[00:59:38] Brian: And I'm writing an article right now, and I'm gonna give away something on it and this is my very hot take. We are at the end of slop. Slop is dead.

[00:59:53] Phillip: Really?

[00:59:54] Brian: Yes.

[00:59:54] Phillip: Okay.

[00:59:55] Brian: And I know that's like counter to everything everyone is saying right now.

[01:00:00] Phillip: It seems counter, but I'm here for that.

[01:00:01] Brian: Yes. I'll tell you why in the article, so be looking for that.

[01:00:04] Phillip: Okay. What was our last I think that puts a really good bookend on that. What was our last piece that we had to cover?

[01:00:13] Brian: I don't know.

[01:00:13] Phillip: Thanks. Someone's gonna be shouting at me.

[01:00:15] Brian: Yeah. We'll get it next time.

[01:00:18] Phillip: Heroes and Villains.

[01:00:19] Brian: Oh, Heroes and Villains. Yeah.

[01:00:20] Phillip: Quickly. My hero of the week. I always let you go first, but I'll go first. Yeah. Hero of the week. I would say we're I think the I'm gonna say the Future Commerce editorial team is my hero of the week. {clapping} We're covering things faster than we ever have.

[01:00:41] Brian: Yes.

[01:00:42] Phillip: And I'm really proud of, in particular, the Future Commerce Plus growth that we've had. And so I think our relevant content, especially on just the freely accessible content, but in particular, our policy content, I think have been really, really on point. That's selfish, but hero of the week is just me. Our team. Our team is incredible.

[01:01:09] Brian: Hero of the week for me, I would say I'm gonna actually go ahead and say Pope Leo the fourteenth.

[01:01:14] Brian: Wow.

[01:01:15] Phillip: Yeah. I'm excited to see what he does. I think he has the potential to be a uniting factor and obviously time will tell to see how he does that and obviously he's part of the Catholic church, there'll be polar elements to that, but I've liked what some of the stuff I've heard him say so far about technology, about the future, about the world at large. I'm not sure again all of his beliefs are how it will play out and maybe I'll eat my words later but I'm excited to see where this goes.

[01:01:49] Phillip: Villain of the week.

[01:01:51] Brian: Oh, your first this time.

[01:01:52] Phillip: Okay. Yeah. That's true. I think villain of the week. I would say cynicism regarding the economic outlook. I think the last thirty days really did take a toll on a lot of people in our space. I think the cynicism monster really can eat us all alive. And I think I did a pretty okay job in not letting it get me down. But I think in general, we need to do... I think it's important for us to advocate for our industry, but I do think that it's really easy to just give up. I think a lot of people have really kind of gave up there in the last thirty days and just kind of gave in to the cynicism. So I'd say was watching people... The villain this last week, think for me was people...

[01:02:52] Brian: Despair.

[01:02:52] Phillip: Yeah. The despair. I think and then also being very just sort of like... I'll admit to a little bit of it too. I think it's it's been tough to... This last thirty days was tough for a lot of people. But I think that there is a silver lining there. How about you?

[01:03:12] Brian: Villain. I'm gonna actually, people are gonna hate this one. I'm gonna go with the movie Conclave.

[01:03:22] Phillip: Okay. What?

[01:03:24] Brian: I know. I know. So here's why. I thought it was a beautifully shot movie. I really saw it as like one of the most predictable movies I've ever watched.

[01:03:36] Phillip: So many people have said that.

[01:03:37] Brian: Oh, is that true? Okay. Haven't been following. But I found it to be like extremely obvious and plotting. And so while it did bring a lot of awareness to the papal selection process and got people hyped up about it, I just, I thought a lot of people liked it a lot. And so I thought I was like one of the few people that was like, 'This movie was really predictable."

[01:04:02] Phillip: No, no, no. I've heard that too. I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people had that critique, but I think it was, people were able to overcome it because of all of the other strengths.

[01:04:16] Brian: Yeah, the other strengths. Actually, I agree with that. I think it was beautifully made movie. All the shots are phenomenal. Yeah. So Yeah. There you go.

[01:04:25] Phillip: Thanks so much for watching. If you're watching on the YouTube, drop us a comment, like, subscribe, do all the stuff that gets the algorithm pumping for us below. Really appreciate you tuning in. And remember, you can grab our copy of Lore, which is our newest book from Future Commerce Press. You can get all of our print right now. We've got four or five different books for you to grab at futurecommerce.com. And if you wanna go directly to the buy link, it's shop.futurecommerce.com. We have an entire world of branded merch and print for you, and you can save a little bit of money, 15% off if you are a member of Future Commerce Plus. And remember, Future Commerce Plus, we have some exclusive insights, briefings, and our word-of-mouth index, so much more for you.

[01:05:06] Brian: Exclusive podcast.

[01:05:07] Phillip: So much exclusive content. There's so much there. And for it's a very low price for what you get. Remember, you can put that on the company card. And for an annual price of $200, I think it's beyond the amount of value that you get. Get all the things at futurecommerce.com/plus. It'll tell you everything that you get there. And then also, wanna see you at our VISIONS Summit. That's coming up in less than thirty days. Futurecommerce.com/visions, and we are coming up very quickly on that, and we have just a few seats left. Futurecommerce.com/visions. Can't wait to see you. Remember, commerce shapes the future, and that's why commerce is culture.

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