Between the Interviews - Return on Investment

Today, I do some back of the napkin math to examine the cost of turnover vs. investing into employees and when it might make sense to choose one over the other. We use the lens of different financial business models and how they may be guided by flashy buzzwords and arbitrary deadlines expedited by manufactured urgency. Ultimately, is chasing the flashy thing really worth it in the end or would a differently focused investment give way to longevity and stability fueling better results? How do you calculate the return on investment? 

What have I have been listening to: The Dollop (both a regular listen and attending live podcast recording shows) - It’s well researched, hilarious, entertaining, thought provoking, and I never fail to learn something new from it. The host, Dave Anthony, reads a true historical story to his friend, Garreth Reynolds. The relatability of the co-host reacting to the outrageous twists in turn at the same time the listener is reacting is genius. 

I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar: Rareform

Early and bonus shows as well as curated discussions and merch are available on Patreon.

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Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interviews show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interviews shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interview shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews, and will be posted on the main feed, but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form.So if that's your jam, head there, there's a link in the description. All right, folks, so today, I'm going to get into a little bit more of my experiences in my viewpoint, specifically as it relates to return on investment and different business models, specifically different financial business models, and how those two things relate to each other. I have talked before about the different kinds of organizations that I've worked for and with in the past.

So many different structures, some like home offices versus satellites, same thing with corporate offices versus a satellite. I've worked for startups versus established larger organizations, and then some organizations that function almost like a franchise, where there's a main corporate hub, and then locally run businesses under that same umbrella, that might have some corporate support and oversight, but maybe some different functions, maybe some similar functions that we're replicating from place to place. I've done it from ground up, square zero, day one, and I've also kind of jumped in and like, oh, how do we get things ramped up or how do we scale?

How do we move a little bit forward from there? So really kind of like the whole gamut of different types of organizations. And they all have their own pros and cons.

They all work in a different way because of the way that they function and what their purpose is, and they evolve over time depending on what kind of like stage and phase of business you are. You know, a day one start up is going to function a lot differently than an established organization that maybe hasn't changed or evolved in the grand scheme of things over the course of 50 years or 100 years or so. And maybe that same kind of mission and structure has been in place more or less for the entire time.

It might have changed and evolved a little bit, but still kind of true to the way that it started. One thing that I've found kind of universally through all of these different types of organizations, that's pretty obvious, but I'll go ahead and say it out loud anyway, just for the sake of this conversation, is that there's really no 100% satisfaction, whether that's internally or externally with the clients and customers served. At the end of the day, we're all just doing our best.

We all have opinions. We all have different things and different priorities that are going to make us be like, eh, that wasn't quite up to my standards. So keep that in the context of going gray, that this is all a spectrum of gray.

I'm not here to say one type of business model is the worst and should never be used. I mean, there's probably ones out there, but that's not the conversation we're going to have today. I'm also going to talk a little bit about the types of people or maybe the types of interactions of employees that we are as business leaders encouraging by our structure and by our financial business model and really just the way we run things on kind of a day-to-day basis.

So, there's one chunk of people that have a tendency to just kind of like tune out the grumblings of what's going on or the things that annoy us or get under our skin about some of the leaders, specifically if it's in a situation where like they don't really necessarily agree, but it's easy to be like, meh, well, that's just the way it is. That's the job we signed up for. So that's we're just what's the point in fighting it.

I would say that that kind of parallels with the context of the greater world that we live in, specifically here in the United States in March of 2025, is there's a good chunk of people that have a tendency and that are good at kind of tuning out politics and government talk, or a controversial topic that's going on at the time. Again, you'll only hear me talk about this because those are things that I don't necessarily tune out and in fact tune into because that's a lens through which I view the world, government, politics, information systems, people, and cultural structures are things that are really interesting to me. So it's probably not surprising that I'm not one of those people that often tunes out completely.

Although I will be honest, I do have a tendency to kind of tune out some of the like hat button issues, maybe some things that are headlining in some way primarily because I would be more apt to focus on kind of the inside baseball type of things, like more of like the nitty gritty ins and outs of what's going on. So if we go back to business, there are those types of people that will really just tend to kind of keep their mouth shut, keep their head down, specifically in maybe a toxic or borderline toxic or frustrating work environment, something that is really tough, maybe leaders that are tough to work with. There are some people who are just going to be like, I'll say it again, the ones that are like, well, this is the job that we signed up for, like what's the purpose?

They're the ones in charge, not me. There's the saying of like, well, that's above my pay grade, and like that's someone else's problem, or that's not my job. Again, it's probably not surprising that I am not naturally one of those people.

I specifically don't have a problem speaking up and kind of making waves, especially if I think that it can have a positive impact. Now, I consistently believe that there is a fine line between being like a full-on contrarian and just resisting any kind of change or resisting any kind of authority versus having some meaningful conversations about being thoughtful about the decisions that we're making and the direction that things are going. Again, kind of the person that I have always been.

I have talked sometimes about how it was probably a nightmare to parent me when I was a child, because I really don't hear and internalize the word no very well. When I hear the word no ever since I was a kid, my brain doesn't hear no. My brain hears like not right now, or not in that way, or like, not at this time.

And I'm immediately just thinking of like, all right, well, how can I turn that into a yes? Or like, how can I understand that better so that I either can accept what's going on, or why that no came in, or like, how can I actually get to a yes? I, just if I'm being fully transparent, that is who I am is a person, so it's probably not surprising that it shows up in my work life as well.

I don't have a problem raising my hand and asking questions. I have kind of a deep-rooted need to understand things, and if I don't understand things, if it doesn't make sense to me, then the logic part of my brain kind of farts out, and I have a hard time going through with whatever that is. I don't know if it's like the root of like the efficiency of time or effort, or what that are like being purposeful, or whatever that is, but it is just an honest part of like who I am and how I move throughout the world.

So that shows up, not just in my personal life and everyday life, but that also shows up in work when I'm having these kinds of potentially controversial conversations, ones that can be uncomfortable, ones that take extra time, but ultimately could lead to building a stronger team on the other side. I try very hard not to be the person to rock the boat unnecessarily. If there is a point at the end where I think that we can get to some kind of process improvement, then I'm really interested in having those kinds of conversations.

Make your judgements however you wish about what that says about me. But I really believe that it's super important to have those kinds of conversations, especially those ones that are difficult and sometimes controversial or uncomfortable. Because at minimum, even if you don't end up seeing eye to eye, or like 100% buying in to either side of that conversation, you'll understand the other person more, and you're more likely to have more tools in your toolbox in the future to just like have a better understanding of what's going on and why certain decisions are being made.

I think it's also important for people who are like me to have those types of conversations, but to listen, but to also understand that maybe it's not appropriate or it's not a good use of our time to know everything that's going on. There's got to be some level of trust that there are circumstances or situations maybe going on that maybe truly are above your pre-grade or just not necessarily in your lane that are impacting those kinds of decisions that your leaders are having. So I just want to make that distinction that I'm not always trying to push back to be a know-it-all.

I do see the value in letting the experts be the experts and also trusting that other people will and can do their job to the best of their abilities and don't necessarily need someone like me poking their nose in other people's business, being like, what's going on? Why are we doing it this way? I'm just going to push back and make waves for no reason.

On that spectrum of people and personalities, it probably leads me to be more on the fact-checker side of the spectrum and not necessarily willing to accept the talking points just on their face value. I'll give you an example. I once worked for a company that had a business model that was, from my perspective, clearly undermining our ability to deliver services to our clients.

My role in this company was to kind of be the face of the organization to our clients. So if something was lacking or not meeting the standards of the clients in the financial, or the HR, or the purchasing, or whatever department, from the client's perspective, that was my responsibility. But on the other hand, in reality, the position that I had in the company structure, I really had no power or control over those services that my client was receiving and the things that they saw on their end.

So as a result, internally, I would push for some adjustments that would address some of those client concerns. I would be kind of the voice and the advocate while trying to do what I could have control over to build up a really good support system and structure for those clients. So this all kind of comes to a head when we would have these regular conversations with our leaders because that corporate kind of headquarter office where I sat was relatively small.

And I will also point out that at the same time, the company had transparency as one of their company values. And I bring that up because we would have these regular kind of corporate company wide meetings where we would go over the highlights of kind of what was going on, wins, challenges, changes that were coming up. All of those kinds of normal big giant company meetings.

I say giant, but keep in mind the context of this office was relatively small. So a lot of the issues that my clients were having were specifically surrounding kind of either direct or indirect financial business model issues. So as you can probably guess based upon how I've described myself, I would bring those things up specifically with our financial leader.

We had a new financial leader that would come in and we would have these conversations about the business model. Like, hey, this business model and this structure is not really working. And here are the concerns and here are the walls that I'm hitting with our client that really I need your help addressing.

And I don't really have any control over what's going on, but I need you to hear the feedback that we're getting and the risk that is going to come along with that with potentially losing these large clients at the end of the day. So, as a result of those kind of internal conversations that I was having under the disguise of the word transparency, that company value, the financial leader would stand up in these meetings and give a financial snapshot of a particular situation and would also say the words or something similar. Quote, our business model works.

But the words in the example that he was giving weren't matching and was also in fact, not matching my experience in the feedback that I was getting from my clients. So there was this discrepancy between the words that were said, our business model works versus the actual widespread experience. So I'll also call out that this company was largely moving toward one of these business models that I'll use as an example here.

It's a common one that involves this growing and shrinking of a workforce disguised as adaptability or supporting innovation. So let's dig into that a little bit more. There's this common business model that frequently is adapted that involves this growing and shrinking specifically of the personnel portion of the budget in a way that's almost a given.

It results in this cycle of a large hiring boom where you bring in a new eager class of employees, an aggressive revenue goal in the budget that is ultimately likely out of reach. Sometimes it's called a stretch goal. I've worked in organizations where I was asked to find money.

Where kind of our revenue was set and given, I could tell you within a few thousand dollars what I would likely bring in in revenue from within my portfolio. And I was told to just find more or pad that revenue, even though it wasn't likely to go in so that it looks good. It looks like we're going to meet this supposed budget in the next year.

But, in fact, we all know in reality, the likelihood of making that revenue goal is almost non-existent. So, a part of that business structure is knowing that likely there will be a shortfall toward the end of the year. But, there are all these complications depending on your business structure.

You might have a board that's approving. You might be going after certain things. There might be a lot of pressure on a business development sector that is supposedly bringing in new, unexpected money.

Who knows what that is? Again, everything is different. It is all a complicated spectrum of gray here.

But, in this business model, there is that aggressive revenue goal that we know is likely not going to be met. So then, there's this likely expected revenue shortfall that results in these mass layoffs. We see this often with these larger corporations that end up in the news because they affect many, many people in a given area, specifically these hubs of certain cities.

Now, there are versions of this that disguise these mass layoffs with pushes for reorganization that result in a large set of employees becoming frustrated and voluntarily leaving, with another set of positions simply being eliminated, only to then start another hiring boom later, justified by the cost savings of a period of time with smaller workforce spending. Now, before I go any further, I just want to give the caveat that I totally am supportive of and understand that there is a time and a place for reorganization. There is a time and a place to eliminate a duplicative position.

That's not really what I'm talking about here. What I am talking about is the businesses that use this expected cycle of expanding and shrinking in their budget to simultaneously, seemingly thrive off of the way in which they push their employees through certain parts of this cycle. In my experience, Amazon is a company that commonly has a reputation for being one of these companies that functions on this business model.

Oftentimes tech companies fall into this as well under the disguise of innovation or adaptability. Again, they're kind of these like buzzwords, much like in the example that I gave before, the word transparency was given in that there were certain examples that we were seeing of the inner workings of the budget, but they didn't really support the talking point of this business model works that was really being said. Back to Amazon.

Specifically, if we're going to talk about some of these larger hubs, I lived in Seattle, Washington for a while, so it was common to know one or many people that worked for that main office there. And I'm just going to pull some of these like random things out, like these are common things that these types of companies do because they don't want to target just like any one organization here. But paying employees a really high wage compared to the market to be able to offer extra benefits, like, hey, we've got this really high compensation, we've got a really high bonus package.

There are benefits like you are allowed to bring your dog to work. We've got this big dog park that is right here on our campus. There's a cafeteria for you to eat lunch at, so you never have to leave and deal with the hassle of going to find a table at lunch in the city.

We don't care as much about dressing in suits and ties. We'll put a really big campus in the middle of a city, so you can just walk a couple of blocks to work. There are all these perks, come work for us, and that is used to draw people in.

Again, all of these things that we're talking about, take a tremendous amount of money to pour into the business, to build that dog park, and to build in the middle of a city that has a high building cost and all of those kinds of things. But at the same time, what I have noticed is these companies are also notorious for pushing employees so hard that they feel like they can't leave the office. But also, why would you need to leave the office?

We have everything here. Why would you need to go home in the middle of the workday? You have your dog here and you can just take them for a walk.

Sometimes it's used to justify these like high goals, high expectations, really fast and expedited timelines that result in employees working extremely long hours. But also, but we're giving you these perks so that hopefully those extremely long hours don't matter because again, you've got your dog. Now, another thing that I'm going to caveat here is while that's a part of the competition that theoretically comes with capitalism, does it really make the most sense in the long run?

There's a short-term gain of the handful of years that an employee tolerates working for you, and maybe they're eager to get that bonus, to have that perk of having their dog at the office or not really having to wear a stuffy suit and tie when they go into their office. But will they also give you bad reviews when the people in their network ask for recommendations? Will they be more willing to encourage other high-performing employees to leave when they ultimately get burnt out and decide to leave, so then they all go leave for your competitor organization?

Will they end up costing you more money and time to replace them? So let's just do some really quick back-in-the-napkin math here to just talk about the cost of turnover for employees. Specifically, if we're going to talk about someone who is a valued employee, let's use an example of a great employee that you have that has been with your company for five years.

They have a salary of $100,000, so we can just make that nice and easy. Let's also not even talk about benefits, any kind of perks, bonuses, taxes. Let's not get into the weeds of those types of kind of added costs for their employees.

Let's just talk $100,000 annual salary over the course of five years, but maybe they don't love the way they're being treated. Maybe they're starting to get burnt out. Maybe they are starting to think that it's not really worth it.

Maybe they are looking at a shiny new potential position or friends that are more satisfied in other roles. So they're starting to think, maybe I'm probably going to leave here. So let's say that that employee, again $100,000 annual salary, they really start to think about leaving for let's say three months.

They know that they're going to leave, their mind is already made up, so their productivity kind of just starts to tank. So just on that alone, if we talk about a three month time period where this employee is just not super engaged anymore, that's roughly $25,000 that we're talking here. Then eventually, they over the course of those three months, they look elsewhere, they make a transition plan, they figure out what they're going to do next, they give you their resignation, and they give you two weeks notice.

I know that in different fields, there are different standards, but in this example, we'll just talk about a two week notice. Let's also say that you are lucky enough to work for a company who has a policy that you can post for that open position while that employee is still there, so you're not really losing any extra time. You can start getting the word out and start getting applications to come in while that employee is wrapping up those last two weeks.

Let's be honest, in most positions in your last couple of weeks, you're not going to be super focused on really bringing in extra revenue, completing extra things, you're doing those kinds of tying up old loose ends, maybe leaving some notes for the person who's going to fill your role, maybe doing some cross training because there's likely going to be other people to step in to take on parts of your job in the interim. It's just not really a productive time. You're also adding some extra stress on the folks that are going to take over for that position while that position is vacant.

So that employee leaves, then say you have two weeks to interview applicants for that new position, and then you decide on a candidate to fill that role, you offer them the position, and they give a two weeks notice to their old job, and then they come over and start. So right now, we've got three months plus another, let's say this is just an expedited timeline, for that new employee to come in. So that new employee comes in, but because it has been five years since you filled this position, the job market, the way it is right now, in order to really get the best candidate that you need to fill that role, you've got to bump up their salary.

So instead of $100,000 salary, maybe you're paying this new person $115,000.

Or it's $100,000 plus you pay for their relocation, or you pay for a sign-on bonus, or whatever the situation might be at your company. In total, now you're looking at $115,000 annual salary. So you've got that $25,000 plus this new person.

If we are gonna, I guess, be a little bit generous, maybe give them also three months to get trained, get onboarded, get the lay of the land before they're really up and running. So from the time that there was maybe a slow down, a question of is your former employee going to stay, to when that next person comes up and really gets rocking and rolling. Say we're looking at six or seven months in between, but you're still paying that new employee.

Plus you've got all of these other things going on simultaneously. You've got people kind of stretched a little bit thin. So, total, we're looking at, you've got $25,000 from that previous employee that will count as wasted money.

Plus this new employee, say we've got like $28,000, maybe $29,000 depending on kind of where we're going here. If we just do some rounding here, we're looking at $55,000, $60,000 just for a minimum of six months. That's already over the cost of the previous employee that was going to continue to work for you.

And continue to be productive had you taken care of them. Had you addressed some of their concerns? Had you really talked about the burnout?

Maybe they needed to step away. Maybe if they just took a one month vacation in there, you could have solved that problem. Versus now we're looking at six and seven months plus $60,000.

And we haven't even talked about other additional cost. I would argue that this is a relatively aggressive timeline in this transition between your old employee and your new person, but we're not talking about, again, those sign on bonuses, equipment, travel expenses, if you have applicants coming in to interview in person, cost of placing job ads or attending career fairs, plus the added stress and reduced productivity on your current employees that are staying, that are covering that other position. Maybe that even leads to additional stress and causes more people to leave.

And so, you're already in the hole by just having one person leave and filling that in with another person. Now, again, there are caveats. There are times and places when it is just the right decision for an employee to move on.

Maybe they weren't a high performer. Maybe it was something that was really kind of dragging you down. It was already kind of a drain on your expenses.

So getting some new, fresh kind of energy in there might be a great thing. But, in this example, you had a great employee that you just weren't investing your time and energy into. What if you had invested that minimum $60,000, let's be honest, that cost is probably a little bit higher, into that employee?

What if you invested even just a portion back into them? Again, even if you gave them, this is pretty generous from the United States, an entire month of PTO where they could be uninterrupted and really take a break and come back refreshed. Would they have stayed?

Would they have recommended someone else to fill their position, even if they truly were wanting to leave and ready for a different position? I've worked for organizations that really focused on legacy planning, i.e. kind of knowing that you're going to leave, but that you've trained and poured and invested in a junior position that could grow and take on that and be that replacement for that employee.

You've got someone else kind of in mind tapped and ready to go to shorten that transition period. It's also kind of leaving everyone, separating on good terms versus someone being frustrated and just up and leaving. And then also any negativity that comes with that person spreading their not so great experiences for you or with you.

So, some may argue that that, say, $60,000 was invested to build the drug park or the cafeteria or whatever xyz cool sounding thing was. But what I'm really getting at is, was that worth it? Did that accomplish your goal?

Are you truly wasting time and money by burning that employee out and really not addressing some of the concerns? I'd also say that sometimes those, those frustrations tend to not be one-offs. If you've got one employee that is super burnt out with low morale, likely that has spread through a lot of the team and you're really dealing with kind of a more widespread issue at the time.

So while that business model of pushing people really hard, this frequent and expected turn over and because of burnout, these people just kind of like up and leaving productivity, really tanking these like big swings of highs and lows. While that may end up resulting in deadlines being met, especially those employees who are, again, those high performers that are going to be driven by those deadlines and want to truly do a good job, they are often going to be the ones that are going to meet those deadlines. It may be that you do have a lot of innovations that truly come out.

Maybe you're pushing product out faster or whatever it is that you're doing. But does that mean that your company also likely burns out faster, just in the same way that your employees do? Then what happens?

Does your quality of your product go down because less people are willing to work for you? Supply and demand really applies here as well. Does your company end up filing for bankruptcy?

Do they end up selling and getting bought out at the end? Was that the goal the whole time? Again, every business model is different and the goals of every business are different.

Where was your goal to build a successful and long-term standing business? Your intention and the context matters here. I'd argue that if your goal was longevity, maybe investing in different ways might have yielded a higher ROI for your company.

So again, don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place when reorganizations make sense. There's value in eliminating duplicative positions. There's value in adapting and evolving to better serve your clients and your customers.

But what I'm really talking about here is when that volatility is baked into the business model and the cycle of instability is more often than not anticipated. I see this often with companies again prioritizing innovation propelled by speed. Example, tech companies tend to do this.

They want to get the newest product to market the fastest. So again, if we're going to talk about some of those tech companies, those Amazon type of companies where you've got like high burnout rates, it's at what cost? Also, please don't get me wrong here.

I am not anti-innovation. On the scale, I just say that I'm more thoughtful of the big-picture goal of continuing to operate to thrive with many innovative successes versus winning with this flashy singular fleeting success. Easter egg.

And more of a slow burn than kind of a hot, bright and fast burn. We'll get into that later. Again, we live in a complicated world, and there are several cities that are run by these monopolies of singular or few companies, narrow options for workers to choose between, so they can't just hop jobs as easy as maybe the employee in this example was able to.

You know, industry towns are an example of this. Or an employee might have more power in those types of situations. It might have less power in these types of kind of narrower pools of jobs.

Also, the unemployment rate, how that affects certain geographical areas, that all kind of factors in here. So again, this isn't like a hard and fast thing, just more of like a thought experiment of how do we really value our employees and our team members, and how does that in turn come back to provide value to our companies. Some may also say that the job market is largely different than it used to be.

For example, my mom worked for the same company of a different positions, but she worked for the same company pretty much from when she was under the exact age, but we'll just say 20 all the way through when she retired. Whereas, as I've talked about in some of the earlier episodes, I have been much more willing to move jobs, move companies throughout my career, have multiple streams of income, and do some different things where she probably never would have chased any of those things. So that's a little bit of the environment being different.

It's a little bit of personality is being different. It's a little bit of priorities being different. So again, it is all a spectrum of gray.

But what I'm ultimately getting at here is that there are times and places where we can each strive for just 1% better. Where can we attempt to ignore this manufactured anxiety of urgency for some more methodical stability? Another Easter egg, we'll get into that a little bit later, of this idea of like urgency and being driven and fed by like this artificial anxiety that's been created.

It's all a spectrum, but maybe just consider, is our company's business model really falling victim to this flashy word of innovation, to this flashy word to meet this artificial deadline that maybe we've created or our board has created, but really if we slowed down, maybe if we prioritized our employees, if we prioritized our clients in different kinds of ways, we could have saved us all some hassle. And again, we're talking business here, so it could have saved us money. Food for thought here.

All right, so let's move on to what have I been listening to? This is also probably not a surprise. I am a big podcast listener.

One that I have been a long-term listener of is called The Doll Up with Dave Anthony and Garreth Reynolds. This was from a recommendation from my friend Megan. Shout out, Megan.

And what I really appreciate that is one, super entertaining, easy to listen to, funny, done in the skies of like not really taking life super seriously, but also talking about things that are important stories in our history, maybe lessons that we can learn and take away from those. I will also say that I've been to live podcast recordings of that show that have been hilarious. I went in Seattle, Washington one time, and they did an episode that was specific to Seattle, which was super entertaining, hilarious, a great way to spend an evening.

Would highly recommend. So if that is your jam, I highly recommend that you check that out. I also love that that has become a trend of these podcasts doing these live recording shows.

I've been to one of my favorite murderers, as well. Really great use of time. I'm also the kind of person who loves to go to a concert or a live show.

And that also probably makes sense for what I've talked about of like who I am as a person. So that's my jam and I really enjoy it and would highly recommend. And then finally, in my, I'm not telling you what to do, but here is where I am putting my dollar is a company called Rareform.

If you're watching on video, I'm showing a wallet that I have from them. I've had this wallet for god, I'm not good at time. I'm gonna guess five years or so.

It doesn't get used all the time anymore, but I pretty much used it on a daily basis for many years. It, they make more than just wallets. They make all sorts of different products, bags, totes, coolers, lunchboxes.

And they're all made out of repurposed billboards. And so again, I like things that are a little bit unique and that are different than, you know, just a cookie cutter type of things. And because they're billboards, they all have different designs, they're cut in different patterns and all of those kinds of things.

And so if you look in the color schemes that are available in the wallet or the tote bag or whatever are not available right now, I encourage you to check back and look later because they'll have different actual billboards that they have repurposed that might be more up your alley. But again, super durable, love the idea of repurposing something like a billboard into something that is tangible and useful to be used on a daily basis. So check that out, rare form.

I will put that in a link to them in the show notes if you are interested. All right, before we go, I've mentioned that this project is supported through Patreon. There's a link to Patreon down in the show notes.

And if you want to jump up a level from the free version, you can do so by becoming a direct supporter of the project through that platform. Once you sign up, you'll get a link to a different feed on Apple or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use. It will take you to exclusive shows and bonuses as a thank you for your direct support.

Also, this project is new and still working out how to make it better and making sure that it's resonating with the folks that are listening. So I really appreciate any and all feedback. I truly do want to hear from you.

So if you follow and message me on Instagram, it's at Capitalism for Good Podcast. Or email me and message me with your thoughts. Check the links in the show notes for different ways that you can also contact me.

It's a really good chance that I'll send you a discount code for Patreon as a thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right, that's enough. Let's go leave this place better than we found it.