Right About Now with Ryan Alford - The Real Truth About AI & Jobs - LeBron James Brand Extension - Mark Cuban Pushing Cheap Drugs - Crypto Gets Another Push to Mainstream

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

SUMMARYIn today’s Weekly Business News, host Ryan Alford delves into key business topics. He discusses the impact of AI on white-collar jobs, urging professionals to embrace and leverage AI technologies. Ryan highlights LeBron James's new grooming line, "The Shop," as a savvy blend of lifestyle branding and media. He also covers the surge in Bitcoin prices and the booming cryptocurrency mining market, advocating for crypto investments. Lastly, Ryan addresses the FTC's delay in implementing a rule to simplify subscription cancellations, emphasizing the need for consumer-friendly practices.TAKEAWAYSThe impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on white-collar jobs and the need for adaptation.Embracing AI as a tool for career enhancement and creativity.LeBron James's launch of a grooming line called "The Shop" and its connection to lifestyle branding.The surge in Bitcoin prices and its implications for the cryptocurrency market.The growth of the cryptocurrency mining industry and investment opportunities.The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) delay on rules regarding subscription cancellations.Consumer frustrations with the difficulty of canceling subscriptions.The intersection of technology, business, and consumer rights.The importance of staying informed about current business trends.The blend of serious business discussions with pop culture elements.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week's Right About Now Business News here on May 30th, 2025, we're going to talk about Bitcoin miners. They're booming. LeBron gets into grooming. The FTC is cracking down on cancel traps. Hmm, got to be just as easy to cancel as it is to sign up, baby. And we're going to talk about AI. Yeah, you've heard a lot about it, but do you really know what it means? It's coming for your job, baby. You better be ready. I'm telling you, better be ready. I'm getting real and raw on AI and what it means. Don't forget it. Don't think you can miss it. It's coming. And we're going to give you the insight because we're going to look back and you're going to go, Ryan is right, today 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 over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Right About Now. It is May 30th. I hope everyone is doing well whenever,

however, wherever you're listening. We know you have a choice with where you spend your time. We appreciate you for spending it with us. I am Ryan Alford, the host. If it's your first time listening, We appreciate you for spending it with us. I am Ryan Allford, the host. If it's your first time listening, I appreciate you for joining. It means the world to me. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, we're here to take the BS out of business, baby. This is the real American Business Show. No spin, just tell it like it is. I've got over 20 years of experience in the marketing and agency world, working with some of

the largest brands in the world. So I come to give you the opinion, the insights, the behind the scenes scoop of what it's like. I run five companies myself. I know what it takes to be an entrepreneur in today's world. So that's where the wisdom and insight, whatever amount I have, I give to you. While I bring to you the highlights of the week from the business world, pop culture, we're blending it all. So again, if it's your first time, we appreciate you being here. And if you're an OG, we appreciate you too, the now legends, as we'll call them. But let's get at it for today. We're cutting straight to it. Got some headlines, got some B lines and just some bylines as they

call it back in the business. But let's talk about first, I wanted to start today. I've been talking about this and it weighs on me a bit because I do want to, if we're going to take the BS out of business, I like to cut it straight to what I know. And I play the role of sort of antagonizer at times, but I try to be, I'm not really a future caster. And I've never really called myself a future caster. I think I'm an innovator. I'm an early adopter, but I've never been one that tries to predict the future of what's going to happen.

I use facts and data to do that. Then I'm one of the first movers. I do that with the brands that we've worked with, the partners that we have, but AI is at the forefront of the news and the discussion. And for a while, even I panned it a little bit because it was just like everything and now artificial intelligence, this artificial intelligence, that, but I want to really draw a line in the sand for my audience and for really what I'm doing on this show is cutting it straight. Artificial intelligence and AI is coming for a lot of white collar jobs, period, end of story. It doesn't mean that those jobs won't be replaced with something else. That's

where I'm going to get out of the future casting business. But I'm just going to tell you, it's coming like a freight train for a lot of the day jobs that are here now. There was an article today amongst many that I read. I'm not going to give specific attribution because there's so many different articles. I don't want to call it any one publication. specific attribution because there's so many different articles. I don't want to call it any one publication. Let's just say there's multiple articles, but things that hit my radar. One of the founders of the biggest AI companies was talking specifically about the impact it's going to have.

I want to be one to educate because if you were out there and you're a knowledge worker, or if you're a graduate that's going to be graduating from college and looking at the job market the next couple of years, you really need to be embracing AI and becoming an implementer, a creator, and someone that leverages this technology, because it is coming for those jobs where all you do is impart existing knowledge that's become very cheap. What do I mean by that? I would mean your paralegals of the world, your entry level junior people that typically are doing rudimentary tasks

at white collar jobs where you're doing spreadsheets or you're collecting internet data or you're doing data basing and different things of the life, or just basic marketing. I'm the social media manager, and I'm posting, and I'm commenting, and I'm doing things to manage. These entry-level, non-strategic, for the most part, jobs are going to be taken by AI and agents, agentic AI, over the next two years. We're leveraging in this company,

I haven't running the leanest that I've ever run because of the ability of this technology is imparting in and allowing within the industries that we are in, in marketing and podcasting and content creation. And so we're at the forefront of the implementation of these things for ourselves, for our clients. But I think there's an awakening that needs to happen within the everyday population of business people, students, and other people that need to wake up to this reality.

And again, this is not fear-mongering. This is not meant to come off as, oh, the sky is falling. It's meant more as education and enlightenment for a way you need to be thinking. You need to be embracing things like chat GPT. You need to be utilizing it within your job, within the things that you do, personal and professional. And you need to be thinking about what's happening and doing research. The most successful people I know are the most curious and the biggest action and risk takers. It's the combination of that curiosity,

interest. It's like me. I know a lot of what I know and am the specialist within friends and family on certain random things purely because I have a voracious appetite for knowledge and learning and understanding how things work. Not every single thing, but four to five categories, technology, marketing, innovative learning, ways with which shortcuts, biohacks, all of those type things are things that have always been highly entrepreneurism. And I always get underneath how things work. What, why do these two cables do this? Why does that do that?

It's just been more initiative and curiosity more than anything. And let me tell you, those are things that are hard to teach, but what you need to know is these technologies, this artificial intelligence is coming for your job. If you are just imparting knowledge and information and a gatekeeper for things that have gotten very inexpensive and very easy to get a hold of, you need to know that that position will not exist as it does today, two to three years from now. We're not talking 20 to 30 years. This technology curve, this innovation curve that's happening in business and around us is serious. And the winners will be those that embrace new, that create new

opportunities, that think about utilizing these technologies in creative ways that we haven't even thought of. The winners and losers won't be those that do or don't do AI or accept it. The winners and losers will be those that creatively implement everything that it enables, the solutions that it creates, the industries that it disrupts, because it's going to disrupt hundreds of industries. So again, this isn't a bow shot of scaring the masses into fear. It's more, I want to scare you into wanting more and understanding the opportunity. I want to create FOMO more than I want to create fear. It's like fear of the unknown. No, you have the ability to use these tools to help develop the solution. There's something really meta at play here,

where literally you could use this technology to help you out of what will be an industrial revolution over the next five years. It will think for you, be your assistant, be your partner, be your agent in anything that you do and enact that requires repetitive tasks. It is literally connecting the systems, the processes, the technologies of all of these things that have been coming to fruition the last 30 years. And it's time to get on board because it is coming and you need to know it. And you need to stick around to write about now where we're going to bring these things to light.

We're going to show you how to get ahead, how to leverage these things for technology sake, more for business sake, not just technology sake, but for business sake, for your sake, for your personal and professional lives and the blending of those things. So again, we talk about being now, the now show. Well, it is here and now, and you need to be leveraging and thinking about this technology as it relates to your business, whether you work for other people or you're starting your own industry, because there's so much opportunity for disruption for those that are lean, those that are nimble, and those that are embracing curiosity and everything this

technology enables. We will be at the forefront of it all, but that's today's hot take here on Right About Now. Now let's get to some fun stuff. LeBron James is unveiling this shop, the grooming line. He's had a show on HBO. If you've seen it, these products really reflect that same vibe. It's real talk meets lifestyle. It's merging brand, content, and commerce all in one clean package. Look, LeBron James, I don't care if you like him as a player. We can debate LeBron James versus Michael Jordan is the all-time great of all time. I'm an old school MJ guy. You know, there's something about his persona a little bit less. I don't know.

LeBron can, can kind of rub me the wrong way. Occasionally. That's all I can say is personally, I was, cause I have more of an NJ guy and definitely growing up in that industry or excuse me, that time period. But I will say ultimately LeBron is smart as hell when it comes to media marketing and understanding the intersection of all these things. And he's bringing it to life with the shop. Check it all out. It is a masterclass in all of these lifestyle content brand convergence for him. I give him a lot of credit. Also today,

Bitcoin miners are riding that crypto surge. Crypto has been up, been pumped and watching my XRP. It's not quite as up as Bitcoin's been the last couple of weeks, but it's doing well. And look, crypto is being embraced by this administration. It's about to take off even more than it is. We've got this decentralization of content, commerce, a lot of things that are really percolating to the surface for why this is going to be big. And there's so many industries that surround it that are also taking off. I think of mining. It's so funny. Back in the day, coal miners and people searching for gold, mining for gold. Well, it's digital gold now. Those miners are out and it's booming at all time highs. Bitcoin hit over $110,000 and miners are riding the wave. Digital mining recently received $150 million capital infusion,

fueling speculation about its role in reshaping US-based crypto mining. Some miners are gaining 30-plus percent in a month and analysts areing a 154,000 Bitcoin if momentum holds. Hey, that's a big jump from 110 to 145. You think about like when we were growing up, your parents, other people would invest in the stock market, hoping for that 7% to 7 or 8% interest over 30 years. Well, now you see these jumps of 20, 30, 40% in one year. Again, don't fight innovation and technology. Get on the train. You need to have it in your investment portfolio.

This is not stock advice. It's just Ryan's opinion. And let me tell you, I don't play the short game on this kind of stuff. You need to be in the cryptocurrency game with at least a percentage. You're leaving money on the table. If you aren't set it and forget it, unless you want to be day trading all day, which, hey, there's money in that too. I don't have time to watch those stocks go up and down or the Bitcoin to go up and down. I just like to put it a

little bit in and go check it every couple of weeks. That's what I've been doing with XRP and riding that wave again. It's up over 400% since I invested six months ago. We'll take that baby. The FTC delays click to cancel rule until July. So, hey, look, we all know this feeling. I think about the number of products and services that I'm subscribed to a lot. I've got more subscriptions that I can keep up with thinking about every way and how easy they make it to sign up. It's like sign up for a free trial for seven days. And the little print below it goes, uh, you know, we hope you forget about it. Uh, you'll probably forget about it and it'll stay signed up for another two weeks. Literally, I can hear the voice in my head when I'm signing up. They know you're going to forget.

But then when you do remember how long does it take to cancel the service? How long have you, I'll go on the website, literally. I'll sign up for something and it takes two seconds. And then I finally remember in that, Oh God, I'm just, I'm not using that. It's not what I needed. And I'll spend 30 minutes looking for the, how do I cancel this membership? Well, that's what this is talking about.

It should be just as easy as signing up. So I don't know if we're the watchdog, but we agree with this, but enforcement's delayed until July 14th. Yeah, there's companies like Peloton, the New York Times, SiriusXM, they still haven't made it easy. They could force subscription models to finally play fair and it's time for it. Again, we need that one click to cancel. Hey, it's one click to sign your life away.

But the least we could do is one click to get it back. Let's go. Mark Cuban wants to fix healthcare. Hey, I don't always love Mark Cuban and everything he says, but I will say I kind of agree with this. It's a lot of money being made in pharmaceuticals. A lot of money being thrown around. Mark's got his hands in a little bit of everything from Shark Tank to Pharmacy Disruptor. His cost plus drugs is tackling drug prices transparently. There's over 2,500 products now. that's up from 111 at launch. He's also backing AI and educational reform in healthcare. Mark Cuban's going on.

We got to get some of these costs down, man. I'm all for, look, I'm a capitalist. Everybody should be able to make some money. Some of these drug companies, the amount of money that I see flying around, let's get real. Let's do this where it's affordable. We got to get some of these drugs are life-saving and we need them in the right hands, but we also need them at the right prices. That's all the major headlines today. So we get you ready for

the hot, hot summer that is coming. We appreciate everyone out there for listening. You can follow along on YouTube. If you're out watching this, you need to be throw it up on the TV. We bring B-roll and lots of other insightful things to the screen. So what's made for the screen and for your ears. We appreciate you. You can go to Ryanisright.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 Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanisRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship

opportunities. Thanks for listening!