The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Matthew Fornaro on Navigating Business Partnerships: Lessons in Structure and Trust

Starting point is 00:00:01 You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks with Oz here from thecrisvoss Show.com. Ladies, gentlemen there, ladies to sing to that mix official, welcome the big show for 16 years, 2,800 episodes of bringing in the Chris Voss show, the most amazing minds, the most amazing people, the most amazing authors. Come with you, share their stories of life, how they can make your life better, and all that

Starting point is 00:00:54 good stuff. And then, of course, along with the amazing guests, there's an idiot with a mic who tells jokes. or further show to your family, friends, and relatives, because if that didn't convince you, I don't know what will. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortresschus Christchis Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortezs, Chris Foss, won the TikTok. And what's it? YouTube.com, Forteschusch, Christfuss. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his ways that he can help businesses be better and all that good stuff. and you'll probably learn some law stuff, some legalese law stuff, maybe as we go along. We'll learn some Latin on the show, maybe that too. We have Matthew Frenaro on the show with us today. He is attorney at law in Coral Springs, Florida. Since 2003, he served businesses and individuals through his Coral Springs Parkland

Starting point is 00:01:46 and the greater Broward County community as a trusted business law attorney. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation, where he represents clients in matters such as contractions to be, commercial and residential real estate conflicts, antitrust, unfair competition claims, trade secret protection, and landlord-tenant disputes. His practice spans a wide-bane range of businesses and civil matters. He advises clients on IP law, UCC and creditor disputes, employment litigation, and representative owners, homeowners, and condominium associations.

Starting point is 00:02:21 He has extensive experience in customer finance and creditor rights, including collections, post-judgment recovery, as well as handling escalated legislation. Today's Monday for me, evidently, for the brain. Beyond navigation, Matthew assists business with a drafting and revision of critical legal documents, guiding entrepreneurs through the formation of business entities, and ensuring all required documentation is properly structured from the start. We'll probably talk about why that's important.

Starting point is 00:02:48 Matthew, welcome the show. How are you? I'm good, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for coming. Give us any dot com's websites. where do you want people to get to know you better on the internet? Sure, go to finerolegal.com, which is my last name, F-O-N-A-R-N-A-R-O-L-E-G-A-L-G-L-G-A-L-com. It's got all my stuff on there, links, all my contact information, all my goodies. They're all there. Matt, do you ever considered radio with that voice?

Starting point is 00:03:15 I sometimes have, but, you know, I'm sure people have told that to you, right? Yeah, I'm waiting for the right opportunity. It's only been 48 years, so. You can start a podcast for your attorney-law service. Give us an overview of what you do there and how you do it. Sure. I've been an attorney since 2003. I've had my own firm for 11 years, and we focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups with their legal needs, whether it's litigation or transactional. And we represent all kinds of businesses, whether virtual, web-based, app-based, brick-and-mortar-based, and through all phases of their life from before they start to after they end. With the work that you do, who is your ideal client and are you relegated only to Florida?

Starting point is 00:04:05 Sure. So my ideal client is obviously, like I just said, business, preferably small business, but I work with businesses of all size, entrepreneurs and startups at any point in their business life. Preferably, it would be great if they could start out before they get in business because we can probably do the most good and help them the most there. I represent them all throughout the course of their life. And I represent businesses.

Starting point is 00:04:28 I'm licensed in Florida, D.C. and New York, but I have clients all over the country. So you can serve them all. And so people come to you. They want to start the businesses or they're entrepreneurs. They need to get going. Why is it important to be properly structured in the right business entity from the start, as we mentioned in the bio? Sure. You know, when you start out in business, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs.

Starting point is 00:04:54 a lot of founders, startups, creators, whatever you want to call them. They're very excited to get into business and they want to start right away and start doing stuff. But you have to use a lot of due diligence. You have to use a lot of caution. You have to do a lot of strategic planning and thinking things out because you want to make sure before you get started that you have all the right foundations in place. And obviously one of the biggest ones is having the right business organization because if you have the wrong business organization, you're going to have legal problems. You're going to have financial problems. You can have tax problems.

Starting point is 00:05:24 You can have a bunch of liability issues and things like that. So what happens is when clients come to me as part of the foundation process, I go through with them. We figure out what the best business organization is for them based on their circumstances. And I also work with preferably their accountant, or if they don't have an accountant, we'll bring in an accountant to figure out from a tax standpoint or from a financial standpoint, also what's the best business organization for them. because legally you can do it a couple different ways,

Starting point is 00:05:54 but financially, if you do it the wrong way, you're getting killed on your taxes. It's, you know, the most important thing before you even start is make sure you pick the right thing before going forward. Yeah, definitely. I've been giving counsel to someone of my family who is wanting to start their very first business and they're going to with a partner, which is always going to end well.

Starting point is 00:06:14 No. I love your answer, dude. No, no, just emphatically, no. That's it. And it sounds like you've been through some experiences like mine, and I'm sure in your attorney work, you've seen lots of battles between partners. But, you know, I explained that to him. The setup is important.

Starting point is 00:06:33 You know, for most of my life being an entrepreneur starting at 18, I built companies to be empires. I wanted to have a cluster of empire of companies that would last in perpetuity that I could retire with. And sadly, life doesn't work that way. And there's a 2008 housing crisis that brings the... the economy to a halt, wipes my empire off the map and my partnerships betrayed. But since then, I found out by having a lot of great authors and thought leaders like yourself

Starting point is 00:07:01 on the show who educated me on building for an exit and how at the beginning, when you're starting up a company, you decide, are you building for perpetuity or are you building for an exit? Are you building something you can easily sell? And if you don't set it up right as an entity, C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC, partnership, whatever it is, you've got to think about that. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, you've got to, you know, it's all part of the game plan from the inception through the end.

Starting point is 00:07:30 So you want to make sure that you have a mechanism where even if you don't know if you want to get out later on or if you want to continue on, you got to make sure you have an off-ramp built into your operating documents or your governing documents. That's how you do it just in case you want to do it. do it. Yeah. That and I get all these solicitations to buy the Chris Fosch Show podcast these days. I think it's the new scam or something. But you know, don't name your company after your personal name if you're considering selling it the future. You can sell it. You just may have to live on. Yeah, you have to stay on. Chris Fosh used to be here podcast. Anyway, what are some other things that you're seeing in the marketplace that maybe are some leading topics of mistakes on? entrepreneurs are making or maybe things you find yourself helping entrepreneurs a lot in your in your

Starting point is 00:08:20 practice. Sure. So it goes back to a little bit of what we're just talking about. They jump right into business and don't do the necessary due diligence. So one of the first things they should do is before they even start is to plan out everything, map everything out and have a written business plan before they even spend any money or do anything. And a lot of people skip that step.

Starting point is 00:08:41 So that's an important step. then the next thing is what we were just talking about picking the right business organization. You have to bring in professionals to assist you. And that's what the professionals do, a business law attorney and accountant, a commercial banker, a commercial insurance agent. These are all professionals who are there to help you deal with their particular niches or issues so that you can focus on the business and make business decisions. So a lot of people kind of skip that or they kind of try to put that hat on themselves

Starting point is 00:09:10 and do it themselves. Then picking the business organization, you know, they somehow pick the business organization based on what their mom told them or what they're a barber. Based on something they saw off the internet. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:24 they don't put in the right governing documents. They just go online to their secretary of state website and just register and think they're in business. And then going forward, they don't have contracts in place for any time they have a relationship with another business or another person, which governs the relationship.

Starting point is 00:09:42 So sometimes they just skip over that and do things on a handshake or not. And they don't have like terms of service. They don't have disclaimers. They don't have, you know, various things in place. And, you know, sometimes it works out and they go along and things don't happen. But sometimes they do. And there's very bad consequences when they do. So those are a lot of repeated issues that I see that a lot of businesses and a lot of

Starting point is 00:10:05 entrepreneurs get themselves into because they don't do the due diligence or the follow through or the necessary steps because, you know, they're so eager to get in a business. They just want to get going and they kind of step over that stuff. And then it comes back to bite them on later on. It really does. You've got to have those foundational elements, contracts, things in writing. You know, you mentioned the handshaking. I was advising someone else starting their business recently and they said, hey, you know,

Starting point is 00:10:31 and I'm just giving counsel from a business aspect, entrepreneur, not legal counsel. Let me make that clear because I'm not an attorney. But Matthew is. I am. Yeah. I'm just doing friendly advice, not legal advice, but okay. And we got all the disclosures out of the way now. But I was, I was like, so what's the deal on this company?

Starting point is 00:10:49 How do you get paid? The other guy has an LLC and I'm going to work with him. And I'm like, what's your name on the LLC? And he goes, no, we're going to start this thing. And we just decided that it's going to be a 70-30 split. He's going to take 70 and I'm going to take 30. And I go, of what? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:09 Every dollar that comes in. That's not the way a business works. There's expenses. And then if you, if, if you make a profit, it might be a 70-30 split or whatever the hell you decide to do. But, you know, everything is on a handshake. Everything's on whatever. Let me ask you this.

Starting point is 00:11:27 Do you agree with this term? And I'm pretty sure I didn't make this up. I'm pretty sure I picked it up somewhere. You never know who your partners are or sometimes who your wife is until the money is on the table, right? that's when you find out that's when you find out what your partners because some people, they see a very small amount of money

Starting point is 00:11:44 that trickles in at the beginning of a business deal and they'll lose their fucking minds. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you don't know who your partner is till the money's on the table or the money's missing from the table. Right.

Starting point is 00:11:55 The team from the table. You don't know who it is. I mean, everyone goes into business with the best of intentions. They do. Everyone's hugging and kissing. Yeah, no one's in there.

Starting point is 00:12:05 Like, yeah, maybe they'll give it a shot. Maybe it works out if not. I hate you. You know, no one's like that. Everyone's buddy, buddy, and everyone's got the best of intentions. But life happens and, you know, things happen. People are not who they think you.

Starting point is 00:12:19 You think they are. They think you are. You know, situations change. And if you don't have it in writing, it doesn't exist. So your boys with the 70, 30 split, it's a he said, he said deal. Oh, yeah. You know, even if they have stupid text messages or whatever, claiming that that shows what's going on, it would be great if it was reduced to an operating agreement.

Starting point is 00:12:41 But yeah, I mean, it happens. And I learned a long time ago. I wrote about this in my book Beacon's Leadership. You, if you don't own it in control, in my opinion, you can tell me if I'm wrong. But, you know, I mean, when you build big companies, you have to bring a lot of people and you have to share ownership. But to me, I just learned the hard way after partners over 35 years of business and owning companies, dozens of companies. that if I don't own it or have the controlling 51 plus percent interest in it, I don't do it. I don't invest in it.

Starting point is 00:13:13 I don't play in it. Unless I'm the final boss, I just don't do it. I've had too many things where, you know, people see $5,000 show up on the table in the first month or whatever and lose their fucking minds. You think that it was a large amount of money for them. And then the greed comes out or, you know, we need to renegotiate this, whatever. But having it in writing, like that's so important putting down who owns what stock. And the other thing is, too, is if you don't own an interest in the LLC or the company, the C-Corp, the S-Corp, whatever it is you're joining, you're just an employee. You can be fired without cause probably in any time, especially if you're kind of operating without, you know, any sort of applied contract maybe.

Starting point is 00:13:58 Yeah. I mean, unless, you know, it's in writing and unless you're a member. of an LLC and you have, you know, your membership certificates or unless you're a shareholder in a corporation and you have shares, unless you're a partnership and you have a percentage of the partnership, you're just there at will. I mean, in a state like Florida, where I am, where it's at will employment, which just means you can be fired at any time for any reason, you know, they can show you the door anytime they want. There's no obligation to keep you around for any reason unless you have some kind of equity interest in something, you're gone at someone's whim.

Starting point is 00:14:37 Yeah. And I mean, like I said, when people see that money on the table, they go, I have to split this with this idiot. I own this company. And yeah, I just learned a long time ago. I live by that rule. I mean, it's a little hard to do that if you have a, you know, some big company where you're having to sell on Silicon Valley to, you know, VCs and stuff, clearly they're going to take an interest in the company. But in that case, I would have to obscure that rule. But for the most part, any, I've just learned, It's such a nightmare to deal with partners, especially if they don't have a business acumen. You know, that really leads me to a point I need to bring into more of my counsel, probably something important to talk about here, is the acumen of the other person.

Starting point is 00:15:14 I'm so many times, you know, I'm the person who started dozens of companies and everything that we've done and built. And usually if I'm going into business with something, they usually don't have my business sort of acumen. They've never built multimillionaire companies. They don't. They've never managed that a large of money. they never had thousands of employees. And so usually they're on my carry list. I'm not, you know, how important do you think that is to, when you go into business

Starting point is 00:15:39 to look at your partner and go, how much business acumen they have compared to me, who's the lead in the situation? And do I need to assess for their flaws? I personally think that's important. You know, I've seen it across the spectrum of people with, you know, their partner or business affiliate, whatever you want to call them, knows a lot about business and knows nothing about business. And, you know, I mean, some of that can be overcome based on if the other person's bringing

Starting point is 00:16:09 in money or bringing in, you know, sweat equity or bringing in a lot of enthusiasm or a lot of know-how. But if you just kind of get a dud as your man next to you, I mean, you're going to have problems. So, I mean, that's why you, again, you want to have everything and running. You want to make sure that if you're the brains behind. the operation and someone's coming in with you. What are they coming in with you for?

Starting point is 00:16:33 What are they bringing with them? I mean, it's great that you can be the business mind, but, you know, if they're bringing in money, okay, great,

Starting point is 00:16:40 then they're bringing in technical know-how or they're bringing in a contact list or something like that, then great. But if they're just kind of there glumming off of you, then that's not good. And before we even get into business, you may want to think, what do you need this person for before you figured that out later on?

Starting point is 00:16:59 and then, you know, they got their handout looking for 50%. Yeah. You know, I experienced that with my first partner of our first multimillionaire company. When we started, I was the business brains and part of the financier. He knew how to do the business that he was working for the business. And we were creating a competitor, or not a competitor, I wanted to serve the business, but we knew the competitors. And so he thought he knew more about business than I did.

Starting point is 00:17:25 So we would argue, we started arguing very early on about billing. And one of the things I'd copied from a competitor that we were building against was billing every two weeks instead of every 30 days because they were the largest service earner in the market and they were billing every two weeks. And being in business before, I understood the importance of cash flow because, you know, you can bill all you want and do all the work you want and make all the quote unquote revenue you want. But if you don't collect it, it doesn't mean shit. And when you're a startup, you know, cash is king, you know, that burn rate and everything. everything else. And so I said, okay, we're going to, we're going to go ahead and bill every two weeks. And he was like, you can't do that. You know, the rule of the laws, you got to bill every 30 days. Mike, there's no rule that says that. And, you know, the initial arguments that we had in our

Starting point is 00:18:13 business, I finally sat down with him. And I said, look, we're going to change the thing. I'm the leader of this company. I'm the CEO. I have far more experience than you. And I want 51% of this company or it shuts down now. And you take 49. I'm a, you're a, you You know me. You know, I've been friends with them most of my life. And I said, you know me, but I can't be sitting and arguing with you over shit that you don't know and you don't understand, even if I explain it to you because you think that's the way it should be because someone else did it that way. And that was really important because after that, we didn't have to argue about stupid shit anymore because my law, my rule was the law. And I had the experience to back it up.

Starting point is 00:18:55 I mean, don't do that if you don't have the experience to back it up. but in the end it bit me after 13 years, but we had a good run. We see what a good run. Yeah. We were like, you know, the band that breaks up after every 10 years. Some people don't have any run. So at least you had a good run. Exactly, yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:11 But that's a good example of, you know, really assessing your partner and their business acumen, I think. The other thing I want to ask you about while I've got you on the line is, you know, this is something I discovered, too, with partners. Performa, I don't know if perform is the right word, but performa, agreements. Some of the problems I always had in my companies is I was the I'm that type A alpha CEO leader big mouth you know all the things right and usually my best partner is somebody who will do rudimentary shit. I'm the visionary I'm the innovator but I don't do rudimentary stuff I don't do

Starting point is 00:19:47 the same accounting over and over again that's it's it's needed but I I just don't that's not my key point and so having a partner for a lot of times who is the opposite of me who can enjoy doing that. But if you asked him to do anything visionary, you'd be like, hey, can you come with some ideas and they just draw a blank. But if you give them a task, they can do it over and over again really well. And if they're a business partner, hopefully you can trust them, which I did. And I think you trusted me for a long time. And but when it really came to what was driving value in the company, it was me. And there really wasn't a performer between us that we should have worked out saying if one person drives more income or does more

Starting point is 00:20:27 work or is working more longer hours. You know, I was the guy who was always taking stuff home. I was always working weekends in the office. He was doing none of that. And when he left the company after 13 years, I literally replaced him. I went from somebody I was paying $40,000 a month to, to someone who was, I replaced with a $2,500 secretary. That's how much work was being done by him in our company.

Starting point is 00:20:54 and how we replaceable was. And I just sat there just going, why have we been paying this guy, all this money all these years? So performal-wise, is that something you should analyze or maybe put into contract? I'm going to do X amount of work

Starting point is 00:21:10 and get paid in direct proportion. If you don't do X amount of work, maybe we renegotiate this thing. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely in any operating agreement for an LLC or your bylaws for your corporation. whatever. I mean, you should put in what the people do.

Starting point is 00:21:28 Yeah. And if it's not in those documents, have it say that it's going to be in a separate set of documents that you then can, you know, re-evaluate as time goes on or whatever. But yeah, it should definitely be reduced to writing. It should spell out, you know, Chris is the thought visionary person and he does this. And then Chris's, you know, sidekick does this. And if they don't do this, then this happens and things like that. So yeah, it should definitely be in there and should be spelled out. Yeah. And that way in court you're covered, right? You've had the litigation for probably stuff like this before. Yeah. I mean, if you either did it or you didn't do it, if you didn't do it, you're in breach of contracts. And then if it's not written, then, you know, it's just open and hearsay. And people like, I've heard judges say, that's cute, but you don't have a contract. Correct. It goes back to what we're talking about with the 70-30 thing before. It's whatever your word versus their word. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:22:22 You know, he's going to show up and say, Chris said he's going to do all the work and just pay me because he loves me. Do you, in your experience, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time, 20 plus years. In your experience, do you ever see any partnerships that really survive into perpetuity? Or is it just a matter of time? You know, that's a good question. I mean, I would say, I've seen long-term business affiliations between people. But I would say at the end of the day, pretty much everything has an ending. I mean, whether it's acrimonious or whether it's harmonious or whatever.

Starting point is 00:23:03 I mean, I don't think, you know, there's very few businesses that go on forever in its original intent and its original form. It's original cast. I mean, it's like a TV show that goes on for a long time. You know, the cast, people come and go and whatever. And that's kind of how most business. organizations are other than like the alpha or the owner or whatever you know the head honcho the supporting cast comes and goes and a lot of time in business the partner or the business affiliate or whatever they tap out they sell out they get bought out they get you know kicked out

Starting point is 00:23:40 and you know i would say for the most part yeah that's probably a true store that's brought in it's true so that is a true story yeah all the more for my rule then you just cemented the the rule i'm going to make a monument to it now the rule of if you don't know if you don't control it don't do it i don't know i mean if you're investing in i don't know some silicon valley startup yeah i get it but for me most of my stuff is about me and my money and usually a partner and whatever i'm building and i like taking control of it but yeah you know it's it's kind of you know people just don't always get along and sometimes over time things changes you know my big partnership fell apart because we got i got yoko

Starting point is 00:24:18 owned by his girlfriend yeah you know she came in and was like you know you know don't need him. You can do your own thing. You can make your own money. Yeah, he tried that for two years after and found it with Yoko Ono instead of Linda McCartney. Yeah, exactly. There's a joke there somewhere, but I'm not going for it. I don't know. It's a pretty good metaphor. Yeah, it is. Yeah. But maybe I'll, maybe I should just go into partnership with vegans from here on now. Maybe there's the Linda McCartney joke. Rest in peace. He's wonderful lady, I'm sure. And so is Mr. McCarthy. Yeah, yeah, Paul McCartney.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Did I say Carthy? Okay, it's Monday, folks, even though it's Thursday here at the Christmas show. Well, you get the winter and tear of an entire week behind you. So it's Thursday evening. You got a lot of miles on you from this week. Then I'm pretty sure I'm mid-stroke at this point. What haven't we talked about maybe that you want to let people know that you do and some of the services you offer or maybe some of the topics you think are occur in today's environment?

Starting point is 00:25:18 Sure. So if you want, we can talk about the. effect of technology, particularly AI on business. Oh, let's do. That's a favorite subject. What are you seeing in your end of the woods? I can tell you from me personally, from I love AI. I use it in my actual law practice. I use it in my actual business, you know, running my business and things like that. I love it. It's great. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened. However, I am responsible for it. I take control over it and I make sure I call. quality control, vet and check everything that it sends out before it does anything.

Starting point is 00:25:54 And that's what the issue with AI is, is that people just kind of blindly hit print, hit send and let it go out in the world. And when bad things happen, oh, I thought it was okay. Yeah. And that's kind of the moral of the story is that I think AI is great for any business of any size, any point in their life. I mean, there's AI for everything. You know, you got to make sure that at the end of the day, you're in,

Starting point is 00:26:20 charge, you're the person who's in charge. You're going to make sure what you're putting out there is correct and useful. Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I had my first AI muck up, I guess. I don't know what you call it last week. So I shoot a lot of models on, and I do a lot of photography. I do a street photography, model photography. I do everything. I love photography. And so we'll use the higher models to do a portfolio shoot at a studio and stuff like that. And one of the gals that I to shot with before she'd seen an ad that I was running for new models to expand my portfolio. And I've already shot her so I didn't want to, I'm trying to broaden the portfolio. And she wrote me and said, hey, Chris, you know, I'd really like to do that job.

Starting point is 00:27:00 I think we're offering like $200 for an hour or two to show up and photograph. She's, I really would like to do that job. And I was in a podcast like this and I have a giant camera that fits over the screen. That's kind of what my head's always bobbing around and looked at her email. and I swear to my life, I typed out, and I'm pretty sure I saw it, but I saw that I typed out, you know, I'm trying to expand my portfolio. Yeah, sorry, we'll shoot you another time. If you got the new Gmail, it's got that Gemini crap, and I haven't figured out how to install it,

Starting point is 00:27:31 but if you hit the wrong key, which I think is usually a backslash or force slash, it will auto-populate the thing. It did that without me noticing it behind the screen that I, you know, hit the keyboard or something, And I sent her a message say, great, we have you booked. We'll give you $200. It's for next week on whatever, you know, that. And sent the email. I thought I sent a different email that I had typed out, but the automator overran it.

Starting point is 00:27:58 A couple days later, she writes me just all excited and so elated that she got the job. She said, I really need the money. And, you know, she's a great gal. And I had to let her down. And I had to realize that I just got fucked by AI. Yeah. And it's because I did what you. I didn't do what you said.

Starting point is 00:28:17 Make sure that you qualify it before it ever goes out. Double check it. No. At least at max, it only costs you upsetting her and maybe 200 bucks. I mean, my industry has been ravaged by AI because these attorneys are, you know,

Starting point is 00:28:37 there's a lot of lazy attorneys, a lot of whatever you want to say, who just, you know, cut and paste whatever AI they're using, sends and they file it with the court. And then the court and the opposing counsels, what the hell is this? Yeah. And they've been sanctioned, a lot of embarrassment,

Starting point is 00:28:55 public sanctuary or public censure, sanctioning, monetary fines, bar grievances, all kinds of stuff because these attorneys just take what's given to them, don't check it and just file it. And now, you know, you've got serious legal consequences that go with it. So my industry has probably been hit.

Starting point is 00:29:14 harder than most industries regarding AI stuff because of the, you know, the high stakes and whatever. But there's a lot of, there's a huge movement now of people trying to make up for it and try to, you know, quality control stuff. But, you know, it's the same thing with any business. I mean, the AI is great. It's a force multiplier. It does everything. But you got to make sure you're in charge of it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:39 I mean, you're right. It was a very minimal mistake. But it was a very powerful lesson. And I'm glad I learned it on something that wasn't, you know, world changing or a big deal or, you know, thousands of dollars or whatever, you know, business deal. Yeah, I'll send you $10,000 or something that types out, you know. You're lucky it's in response to the Nigerian print email or something. Oh, yeah. Here's my, here's my bank account.

Starting point is 00:30:00 Right. Go ahead and dip into there. Yeah, that's really interesting. You guys have had that widespread. I remember seeing the first report of the first attorney, at least that made the news, I guess, where he'd use chat GPT to, for his plea or his response, whenever they spit

Starting point is 00:30:17 to the court, and that did not go well. No, no, there's all, you know, I'm a big LinkedIn troll and,

Starting point is 00:30:24 you know, I get my feed all day long of just people getting sanctioned and left and right. Wow. And they just haven't earned yet. Yeah, and it's got to be embarrassing

Starting point is 00:30:32 as a law firm because you look, you know, you look kind of incompetence. Like, you can't, you can't just draw that stuff up. And people's lives sometimes

Starting point is 00:30:41 are on the line. You know, with what you're doing. and you're, you know, this isn't, especially if you're doing criminal law, I guess, and putting people on death row or murder. Yeah, someone's liberties at stake and, you know, you're citing hallucinated stuff or whatever. And I've had Jet Shp.D. lie to me. So, so people can work with you. They can work you across the nation, if I understand that correctly in advisory and stuff. How do they,

Starting point is 00:31:05 how do they consult with you or find out if they're a fit for your service? Sure. They just reach out to me and go to my website for NARLEU. dot com, shoot me an email, call me, send me a message, text me, reach out to me on social media, read all my, if you want any cool information that's not hallucinated or whatever, you can go on my website. I've got tons of blogs and videos and all kinds of stuff for resources for people in business, wherever they are. Thank you, Matthew, for coming the show and giving us some great answers and making me

Starting point is 00:31:37 more believe in the crazy city I believe in. You know, if you don't control. that sounds so crazy it's true yeah it really is true and i mean you really i think you have to vet your partners i think you have your vet your partner's character i think if there was one thing i would do and going back now is i would vet their character what are their skills at you know because the things we learned about me being a visionary and him being a rudimentary sort of person we just kind of fell into that we didn't plan that at all and i think in the future i would it was a great partnership for 13 years until

Starting point is 00:32:11 Yoko Ono showed up. But that's sometimes, that's having the Beatles, baby. I'll tell you, when I talk about partnership, I don't want to get too off topic, but you look at the breakup of my favorite duo of all time, Hall and Oates. If you read what each one of them says,

Starting point is 00:32:29 you know, it's very similar to your story. Yeah, yeah. Who would I ever thought those guys were one of those lovey songs would fall in a love? Exactly, man. I'm glad I saw them in concert three times because they're one of my favorites, even though, you know, I'm a child of the 80s. So they were number one when I was around.

Starting point is 00:32:46 But, yeah, it's very interesting to see their business relationship fall out and what they each have to say about their business and things like that. Hopefully they, they kiss the makeup and we all like to see them on stage. Probably sounds like you're a fan. I'm a fan. I mean, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, too, where, I mean, they pretty much ruled the radio. Like, every other song was one of theirs because they had such a huge library of hits. And I think it was them and Steely Dan pretty much 24-7 and then some disco crap. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:16 So, Matthew, thank you for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Chris Foss, one, the TikTok, Kitty, and Chris Foss on Facebook and YouTube. Be sure to be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.

Starting point is 00:33:33 You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy.

Starting point is 00:33:46 Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. Hey, Matthew. Great show, man. Great job.

The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Matthew Fornaro on Navigating Business Partnerships: Lessons in Structure and Trust

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