Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Business News Recap: Trump & Musk Peace Treaty - Interest Rates Need to Drop - Apple No Longer Ripe - Agent Store is new App Store

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford recaps major business news of the week. He delves into the resolution of the Elon Musk–Donald Trump feud, advocates for lower interest rates to stimulate economic growth, and critiques Apple’s stagnation in innovation. Additionally, he examines the pervasive impact of social media on consumer behavior. Ryan also sheds light on advancements in AI through OpenAI's Agent Store, the transformative potential of robotaxis, and LinkedIn's pivot to video content, offering valuable insights into how these trends are reshaping the business and technology landscape.TAKEAWAYSResolution of the feud between Elon Musk and Donald TrumpCurrent state of interest rates and their impact on economic growthCriticism of Apple's new operating system for lack of innovationInfluence of social media on consumer behavior and marketingAdvancements in artificial intelligence and the launch of the Agent StorePotential impact of robotaxis on the transportation industryConcerns about cybersecurity and regulation in autonomous vehiclesLinkedIn's testing of vertical video feeds and its implications for professional contentImportance of engaging content, particularly video, in marketing strategiesThe evolving landscape of technology and its effects on business trendsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey guys, on today's business news episodes, talk all about tariffs. The Elon Musk, Donald Trump feud that, right frankly, ended before it started. Talking about everything Apple's up to, Elon Musk with Robotaxi, agent stores. Are they replacing app stores? Maybe that and more here on Right About Now. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with overwere. 1 million downloads a month.

Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Write About Now. It's our weekly business news recap here on Friday, June 13th, 20, 25. I am Ryan Alford, your host. If this is your first time joining, welcome to the show here in our lovely studios.

Greenville, South Carolina, the home of right about now, Radical, and the Radcast Network, the fastest growing independent network in the country. We appreciate you. We know you have options. We're going to keep it tight and to the point today. Not a ton of headlines. Welcome to summer. It's getting hot. Hot in here. It is 90 here in Greenville, South Carolina. I am hot. Hey, I already got a little tan going, been on the houseboat. the lovely Lake Kiwi, the Kiwi Marina. Love my folks over there. My friends on E-Doc, you know who you are.

Appreciate anyone and everyone for listening. And, hey, if it's your first time, buckle up. We call it like it is. We're taking the BS out of business, baby. Every time. It is the real American news program. Hey, we keep it real and raw the way it should be. No spin, just facts.

and you can always watch and learn more at Ryan iswrite.com. Watch us over on YouTube if you're listening because we are always on. We're live on Fridays and Tuesdays, and then you can watch all the back episodes, highlight clips, everything. Catch the best and the brightest. You don't have time to listen to the whole thing. You can always tune in. Hey, let's get straight at it today. The big headlines you don't want to miss.

First, Trump and Elon, seem to have signed a peace treaty. It's funny how news works. Less than a week left after we talked about it, they've already come back together. Unbelievable. Elon's, hey, you don't pick a fight

with the big guy. There's nothing to be gained by fighting with the President of the United States. He came to his census. Look, both really smart guys with really big egos, let's just call a spade a spade. Both, I think, trying.

I think hearts are in the right places, but sometimes our mouths and our keyboard get it going a little too fast. So good to see them. There's nothing to be gained by them fighting. So glad to see that all come to it. At the end of the day, let's get back to business, guys. I mean, this is little girl shit, you know.

Stop the bickering. Let's focus on the issues at hand, growing innovation, growing technology, growing crypto, digital currency, getting those interest rates down. Let's focus on the big issues. All the spadding, put it to the side. And we can talk about Epstein. Yeah, nasty shit went down. But look, we don't know who had what happened. We don't have all the facts. Bill Clinton, Trump, come on, man. We don't know. Let's focus on what we do know.

What we know is America needs to move forward. We need the economy booming and we need to keep our heads above water and keep moving because look, that's what it's all about. Next up, they're signaling that interest rates won't be changing and Trump says he might have to force the issue. Here's my point of view on this. And I know there's a lot of, you know, economic data on either side of this. story, but here's what I do know. When the housing market gets rolling, this economy booms. And when interest rates go down, you get refinancing, you get a lot of money in the market, and you get people spending, innovating, starting companies, and a lot of innovation happening. That is the American way. Yes, made sense when inflation's 9%, whatever it was at its highest level, to pause on having those interest rates too low. But we're not at that point anymore.

inflation data has been good. It's time to lower the interest rates. We need cash in the market. We need people spending on innovation, ideas, new businesses, technology, AI, and buying and selling homes. What gets the movement happening in this economy is what we need. I don't blame Trump for talking about forcing the issue. Hey, both my pay grade to know how that goes down. But all I'm going to say is we need those interest rates to continue downward. Go down a point. The European Union and China have both already done these things. They've gone down with their interest rates because they know that their economies need activity. Let's make the move. Drop those interest rates now. Apple is unveiling a glassy new OS. It looks a lot like Windows. Get a lot of backlash over this,

the people going, and look, I have been, I'm an Apple guy. I'm in my studio. If you look around, I got the iPhone, we got the Mac OS, we got Apple everywhere. So I love. I love. I'm in my studio. If you look around, I've got the iPhone. I've got the Mac OS. We got Apple everywhere. So I love what they've done. But the innovation has crawled. It's like barely crawling. It's almost like break sounds. Totally.

I mean, when's the last real innovation? Don't give me this AI stuff. Apple AI. Yeah, right. I don't use it. It's not helpful. It's too hard. Siri doesn't even know how to turn a text message into a scheduled message three days later.

It's ridiculous. There's been zero. innovation on these phones in three years. So, okay, now we're going to copy what Windows did 10 years ago. It's getting stale, folks. I'm not going to go back to Windows, but if I'm Apple, I'm going back to Joni Ivy, where, I know he's just a creative, wherever the inspiration was coming from. And maybe it was all Steve Jobs. I don't know, but they did that incubation chamber restarted, re-ignited, because right now it's stale all across the board. And look, they had a lot of modernization need to happen to streamline, become more mainstream, they've done that.

But you kind of thought like the companies that had, you know, no Teflon, Apple's starting to show the chinks in the armor for me, because I don't think they've innovated enough and they're going, someone's going to come along with either smartphone technology or something that's going to change this game. Sprout Social has released its state of social media in 2025. The state of social media. Need like some kind of effects on my voice or something. The state of social media. Interestingly enough, social media is more powerful than other.

All the sort of prognostications of doom from social media and rotting people's brains has not come to fruition. Look, folks, this is a changing media. TV out. Local news sort of out. Social media in. it's more impactful than ever. It's where we get our news, our information, and we stay in touch. Look, anything can be used for the wrong reasons, but social media is not going anywhere.

So if you've been sitting around going, oh, selling on social media, hoping your business, it doesn't matter. Well, I'm going to give you some stats that do matter. 82% of consumers say they're buying decisions are influenced by brands that they follow on social media. 82%. It matters that you're on social media if you have a company.

And it matters that you're relevant, engaging and posting content that they care about. That means video. Video 41% more impactful than static posts. I talked about it seven years ago. It said content is king, but video is about to start ruling. And it's already here, folks.

We know it. You know it. You got to be posted video if you're a business for social media. TikTok's boiling up with TikTok shop. You got Instagram shop. You got all these things. And the oil sleek that exists in the offer,

and Nicole offered, and the offered family's driveway is proof point because my wife gets influenced daily. Hey, I do too, just giving her hard time. But I do come home and I'm like, you got influence. And that Amazon truck just pulls out because how many packages are getting dropped off from some influencer, whether it's makeup, paper towels, or cleaner for your shoes. My wife gets influenced. And so do you. We all do. Because influencer market is huge. And it's channeled through social media, which has never been more impactful. We can all deny it, but it's true. B2B marketers expect social ad spend to overtake SEO ad spend in 2026.

Listen to that again. SEO has usually universally been sort of the intent mechanism. I'm raising my hand. I'm searching for something. So that means that I'm shopping for it. So people spend a lot of money on putting on SEO tactics to get their website first and foremost. but here's what's happening. AI, chat CPT is taking the lunch of a lot of these news places.

A lot of people don't even get on Google to search anymore. Now, I don't want to overstate that. It's still a behemoth, but it is declining quickly with all of these AI assistance and everything else because you ask them what it is. And instead of what 10 years ago, people said, voice search is the future. Well, yeah, it's voice search, but it's with AI and not with Google. And social media is going to stay. relevant because ultimately people want connection.

The robots may do all the work, but people are going to want to stay connected, know what others are doing, learn, share, edutainment, all those things will still happen on social media. Speaking of AI, Open AI is launching the agent store with custom GPTs. We've been talking about AI a lot lately, but if you aren't using it, you're getting left behind. There's so many tasks that it can automate. This is interesting.

I think of this is almost like the App Store 20 years ago. Has it been that long aging myself? But again, remember the App Store came along? Oh, my God, my phone can do so many more things because of this. It's the same thing with ChattyPT. These agents that can be developed by everyday people training it to do things, you can then sell it on the agent store. So again, it has nuances for specific industries.

And you can train these things to do. what you need it to with the specific inputs that you give it. But now people can sell these things, much like they did. This is now the new app store. Agent stores is the new app store because we have these assistants that have all the knowledge in the world from the internet, combined with the ability to process it faster than we could. Now you have people building these models and things that they can resell.

And Open AI is paying them 70%. similar that sounds like a similar percentage to the app store it's exactly the same thing Apple takes 30 percent i wonder where they got that percentage from hmm i'm telling you this is what it's going to look like in the future set of apps is going to be agent apps because they're going to be doing all the work processing it formulating it visualizing it like they do now but in a more streamlined fashion this is the app store of the future it is the agent store custom gpts still hate the terminology. Open AI, G, P, B, blah, blah, but, can we come out with just something better? Like, the smartest assistant ever? I just call him Frank. Frank's helping me all the time.

And he does have a British accent, by the way. I don't know. British people always sound smarter than we do, is American, especially as a southern accent guy. I have to overcome my accent. Frank, he's just like, you know, sounds intelligent, giving me feedback. Frank, what could go wrong? We'll see. Other Elon Musk news, Tesla has bumped up. or push back the release of Robotaxie until August 8th, Robotaxy. This is like every science fiction movie coming to life here. It was Robocop, back in the 80s, kind of a so-so movie. But Robotxy, I Robot, all these things now coming to fruition.

Here's what I know. Uber ate Yellow Taxi's lunch 15 years ago. Well, this Robo Taxi is going to eat Uber's lunch when you don't need a human to drive the car around. I've already raised by concerns of the weapons of mass destruction if these things get overtaken online. They're all going to be interconnected, online connected, but keeps someone from hacking into it. I try not to worry about every boogeyman behind the corner, but this sounds like, ugh, dangerous territory. We need to make sure there's great regulation around whatever the hacking mechanism might be.

The problem is the hacker seemed to always be ahead of everyone else. But nonetheless, this will be overtaking. Because look, if I don't have to smell the guy in the front seat and I don't have to, you know, worry about his reckless driving or what he's had for breakfast, lunch, or drinking all day. That's the benefit to me. The robots, I don't think they're going to be getting intoxicated. Who knows? They learn all the human bad habits.

You never know. But ultimately, robot taxi is going to change. And there'll be variations. There'll be companies, other ones besides Elon Musk. But you're going to have self-driving cars and taxis sooner than later. In the next five years, this is going to be proliferated just. like Uber did. People are going to be like, oh, don't even have Uber around here. Well, then the next thing you know you do. That robotaxie will picking you, picking you up, taking you where you want to go.

No smells included. Sign me up. Finally, today, LinkedIn is testing vertical video feeds for professionals. I don't know how I feel about this. No one loves video more than me, but LinkedIn is becoming a little bit too much like Facebook anyway. I love that it's getting a little more personalized than maybe not. I mean, people letting their hair down. Nobody lets their hair down more than me. But I don't know if I want to see puppies, cats, and what you had for breakfast on LinkedIn. Let's keep it to business. Because otherwise, LinkedIn will get replaced by a better business platform. Don't remember what you, don't, do not forget what you are. You're a business platform first. It's great that we're human and we're showing that side of it. But let's not get too

far. I don't want to go down the vortex that is TikTok with these feeds. and just over and over again content that's not relevant to business, getting work done, making sales. Things are related to business. If they do, watch out somebody has opportunity to step in because that's the one thing that LinkedIn has going for it. It's the business crowd. These are professionals.

Again, have some fun, show your personality, but it doesn't mean I care how many cats you have at home. We'll see. See if it hits your feed. We appreciate everyone out there for listening. You can go to Ryan. com for highlight clips, all the old legacy episode, 500 episodes and counting here at our studios in Greenville, South Carolina at my place. Social House. Come check us out at the studio lounge right

here in downtown Greenville, our home. We appreciate you for making us, number one. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit Ryan isright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.