AI Infrastructure Choices, Campbell’s Pushback, and Cyber Monday’s New Reality | TSG Ep. 977

Hey, everybody, are you looking to bring your AI infrastructure on site? That's what we're gonna kick things off with on the Textron Gang today. Hey, Steven, you know, you mentioned, um, AI and where you're gonna run it.

I know that, um, in a recent tech field day, uh, Morant has talked about AI and what's gonna be happening there. And I know you know a lot about this, what's going on? Well, this is an interesting aspect of Tech Field Day, is that we get to hear about sort of what the, I dunno, the zeitgeist, the vibe of the industry is, and at this point, when it comes to AI infrastructure, the vibe very much reminds me of something I think that you and I could definitely talk about, which is this age old question of do you do it on-prem, uh, or do you do it in the cloud as a service?

And then, um, I guess number two, uh, do you do it in a way that looks like what you've done things in the past, or do you do it in a completely novel way? So, as you said, uh, we recently had mortis present at our AI infrastructure field day back in September, and a lot of the stuff that they said is really relevant, I think, to the overall question of AI infrastructure choices. Essentially, uh, Mirantis is building a ai, an AI platform, um, that leverages a lot of the cloud native abilities and capabilities that they've got in house in order to, uh, basically bring up of GPU services, uh, for the enterprise.

This sounds to me like something that developers would really like, but of course the question is, is this what AI is going to look like in the future? I, I don't really have a crystal ball. Um, well, how does that resonate with you, Jeff?

If, if companies were to deploy essentially, you know, a, um, a a, a friendly, uh, Kubernetes based environment to stand up GPU applications? Well, first of all, I think it's going to scare a lot of companies of off the scale, because when you have it local and it appears to be free, then all of a sudden people are gonna feel fewer constraints than saying, here's what I'm gonna do. Let me try this.

So there's that side of it. The, the, I think, positive side is you can have more local control, I believe, over what's gonna happen and how it's gonna be developed, especially in Kubernetes, which ends up showing up like a black box to, to many. So add all that together, and it still comes down to, I think, the overall basic question of, you know, how do we build things and is it going to be something we do ourselves?

How much of it do we outsource? Do we build or buy? And by the way, that was a question we asked what, 30, 40 years ago?

Um, and the question still has and still has open answers because it all depends on how much talent you have in house, how much capital can you spend, how much opex is gonna be there, how many solutions do you wanna just buy and plug in, versus customize for yourself? What are the costs for maintaining it? I think all of those overlay on top of this as to whether you're in Kubernetes, how many things are gonna be local, how many things are going to be in a public cloud?

So I, I haven't answered any question, but I think what I've pointed out is it actually brings up more. Yeah, well, it really does. And, and one of the nuances here I wanna make sure that it's clear about is that, you know, we've heard about a lot of basically hardware centric infrastructure solutions from companies.

You know, basically the big, the big iron vendors nowadays are coming out there and saying, you know, buy racks of servers with GPUs in 'EM and switches and all that kind of stuff. Um, oh yeah. And software.

Well, this is Mirandas we're talking about here. They are, uh, definitely not a hardware company. What they're trying to do is actually, I think, kind of bridge the gap between these two pictures here by building essentially what they call a cloud in a box.

So the idea would be that this would be truly a cloud, you know, as a service environment, but that it would leverage either on-prem hardware or, uh, you know, edge hardware or even a public cloud hardware. I mean, you know, essentially the idea would be that you could have a, uh, public cloud hosted control plane managing your distributed GPU nodes. The, the idea, I think, is to give people the best of all possible worlds.

And there again, Jeff, you've got a lot of experience in the, uh, in the IT industry. It often seems when somebody tries to, you know, basically give you everything, they end up giving you nothing. But on the other hand, um, you know, and I'm not sure that mortis is promising everything.

I think they're just promising something that meets, uh, customers where they are. Uh, so I, I agree. I think what they're talking about is saying, let's find a way to take what you do and make it more ubiquitous.

So take what you do and run it locally. Take what you do and run it on the edge. Take what you do and run it in public cloud.

Um, I think on the surface that sounds like a, a great opportunity, and I'm not saying it's not a good thing to have. The challenge is you're now creating one more, you're essentially creating one more layer. You, you called it cloud as a service, which wasn't, it's not in that standard, um, uh, uh, matrix that you see about cloud services.

But you're also saying now, where, what talent and skills do you need in order to make that work? Is this simply plug and play? Is it that simple?

And how much trust are you putting in mirantis if that's a software you're using to do this? So I think it's gonna be up to every organization to determine where do they wanna be, how do they want to manage it, and what's their AI and cloud combination going to look like? Um, I still think, so I was a physics major, you're still constrained by hardware no matter where you run it.

So I, I, I think people need to remember that's still there. At some point, hardware is running what you're doing. Well, yeah.

And, and that brings the, to message to memory. The, the, the old, uh, point of, uh, data gravity, essentially, you know, AI applications require data. That data has mean, not really literal gravity for physics majors, but you know, metaphorical gravity in that, you know, you've gotta move that data around in order for it to be accessible in, um, you know, reasonable access time, which means that it actually makes sense to either bring the data to the processing for AI applications or bring the processing to the data.

But, um, you know, there's another twist here too that I wanna think about as well. And that's that up till this point, much of the discussion around AI infrastructure has been focused on training workloads that require just oodles of GPU and memory and data. But that's a beginning to shift.

I think that we're starting to see companies thinking about, okay, where do we deploy these applications that use these AI models? So I've trained my model, I've got everything up and running. How can I deploy that application in a way that make sense for the business?

And I think that in many cases, that answer is going to have a lot more to do with business questions than with technical ones. In other words, do I wanna run it in the cloud? Is this really a cloud application?

Do I wanna run it on-prem? Do I wanna run it on something that's my own cloud or somebody else's cloud? Do I have to share this with co with partners and things like that?

I, I think a lot of those questions are really gonna be business, not technical. Um, I, I agree. And it's good that we're having those discussions because the geeks can't run the business.

And in many cases, the bus cases, the business may not trust the geeks. So it could be, if you bring it up to that, um, more philosophical, esoteric level, this could be the bridge for those two. Absolutely.

It could. And I think that, uh, the, the, the idea of having a real software centric approach instead of a hardware centric approach, the idea of having something is very developer focused. Um, you know, it makes a lot more sense to me than these sort of, let me sell you a box with stuff in it, and oh yeah, we'll also throw some software in there kind of approaches.

Um, you know, it, it really resonates with me. Well, I think this has been a, this is good a discussion as, as we can get at this point. Um, but thanks for your, uh, uh, I guess, uh, two gray hairs here.

Uh, talking about the, uh, the history, uh, and how that, and what that says for the future of, uh, AI accelerated computing. You've Earned it. The spotlight, the responsibility, the weight of teams, companies, and entire industries fall on your shoulders, lives depend on your decisions, your home life included, that work you are protected physically and digitally.

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It's convincing you that your personal life isn't at risk. Black cloak, digital executive protection, defending the new attack surface your personal life. Jeff, I think a lot of people are used to seeing CISOs in the news, um, talking about cybersecurity instances, talking about all sorts of things, but mostly they're not really treated as executives as business people so much as, I guess, um, Pollyanna, Cassandras, naysayers, whatever you want to say, CISOs just don't get that kind of respect.

But we do have a story this week that made national international news, and the, the lead here is not a CISO says something controversial. It's a business executive, says something controversial. And then you read the story and you're like, Hey, wait, that guy's an info InfoSec guy, like, like me.

Um, so, uh, so Jeff, do you like Campbell's soup? So before I answer that question, and I'm not gonna say he's like me, 'cause there's, he and I have a lot of differences, I'd like to think. But in any case, there is a foundational similarity.

And, and the, I think the good news for CISOs that comes out of the story, and this is a multifaceted story, and I wanna talk about a couple other parts of it, are, are what you, um, mentioned, where the leads actually buried for, from a CISO perspective, that, uh, Campbell's executives make statements and troubles ensue because of it. And then when you read the story, you realize that executive is the ciso. Well, hooray.

Finally, CISOs are called executives. Unfortunately, it's when they do something that makes news that not only gets Campbell's in trouble, but gets them fired. So let's talk about the different components of it here.

You know, first of all, there's the, the issue was, and I'm not gonna describe the whole thing 'cause it's covered pretty well, but there was a situation where the CISO was having, I think, a lunch with one of his, an, one of the analysts who reported to him, and he made some comments about the, the, um, ingredients in the soup are being, you know, terrible, they're bio-engineered and blah, blah, blah, not worth eating, and it's only for poor people. And then he made a disparaging remark about, um, a certain race of, um, employees that are at Campbell's that he thinks aren't doing any work. I, I mean, if, if everything that was on the recording is true, terrible situation, then nothing good came out of that.

Um, the, and now this happened a year ago, just it's worth noting. And the analyst then tried reporting this up the chain through Campbell, and the analyst was, um, terminated from employment in January of this year. Now there's a lawsuit from the analyst towards Campbell and the CSO and everything.

That's what made the news, right? So there's two big things here. First of all, this is a crisis.

This is an incident that needs response. Chances are that CISO's organization has something to do with incident response. So you'd think Campbell's would've done something earlier about this rather than waiting until there's a lawsuit.

And, um, secondarily, it took this long for it to really come to light. So there's a whole bunch of questions here, but the good news is throughout CISOs are now executives, Hey, we finally made it. Now let's find a good way to have that happen.

Yeah, I I think that you're right, that the, um, well, at least from my perspective, when I heard about this, I actually didn't notice the CISO angle. What I noticed was, honestly, I just thought the whole thing was kind of funny. Um, you know, I mean, essentially, um, I'll, full disclosure, I buy and eat candles, Campbell soup, it's soup, you know, soup in a can.

It's fine, I'm sure. Um, uh, you know, I, but, but I, I remember reading the story and saying, wait a second, this guy was disparaging, um, some of his, uh, employees and coworkers as being, you know, let's say suboptimal intelligence. Um, you know, that's not cool also, you know, um, and, and the fact that they, that they fired this analyst, uh, for trying to report this guy.

Um, uh, I guess if, if I have an angle about this, and I'm starting, starting to think about this, you know, um, you know, I guess let's come right out and say it. I mean, the guy was disparaging Indian coworkers. There are a lot of Indian, uh, people in it.

Um, I, his comments didn't resonate with me. I mean, I, I, maybe I'm just not properly racist, but, um, I, I didn't understand what that was, but let me tell you, if somebody was saying things like that about a coworker, and I wanted to report it up the chain, yeah, I think I'd bring suit against the company if they fired me for reporting that, uh, that, that just the whole thing doesn't smell right. You know?

Uh, no, it, it doesn't, you know, plus if you're an executive in a company, you either believe in the product or you don't. Um, so, so there's one fundamental issue, uh, but also what we don't know is, you know, the individual, the analyst went to the lunch with the intent of recording the conversation, which means either they had an agenda, we don't know this, or see, there's a whole lot of things we don't know about this yet. Or the CISO has such a history, maybe the analyst said, Hey, it's finally time for, you know, for this to become known.

I don't know what that is. I I, I don't have those facts. I'm not gonna make a statement about it.

Um, I do think Campbell's could have handled this better. We don't know why he was terminated. It could have been coincidental with the reporting.

So, you know, there's a lot of things there. Bottom line, though, Campbell's knew the situation and should have had an incident response plan that, um, 'cause I've involved those in the past where I've worked, where something like that happens, we immediately invoke the plan and say, here's what we're gonna do. Here should be possible outcomes.

Here's our response to each of those, should that happen. So, um, there's all that, uh, you know, I, I'm with you. I have no reason to believe that the ingredients in any Campbell products, whether it's super or not, or, or, you know, there's a lot of people eat a lot of Campbell products, and I haven't read about any widespread issue of health coming from people that eat them.

So, yeah, I'm with you on that one. Um, second of all, what's the executive profile really mean for, you know, I don't believe my product, and, and I'm gonna get on Campbell's a bit about this. You, you can't manage everyone's brain.

And by the way, I think you're not properly racist. You should consider training if you want to do that. Um, one would think that if someone reaches an executive level, any VP or higher level, and in fact maybe even director and higher, um, in any organization, I know I've gone through training that says, here's what our corporate messages are.

Here's the voice of the company. And it's not that you become an, uh, a robot about it, but you need to make sure you're in line with that. You're an executive representing the company.

And, and, uh, companies with responsibility usually make sure that their executives know what that means. And I think that's something else that might've been missed here. So there's a lot of parts to this.

Yeah. You know, it's a real good point you bring up about the the guy coming, uh, coming to a, a lunch and recording the conversation. There's definitely more to this story than, um, you know, but, but again, if we, if we kind of look back about what happens in the media, what happens in pop culture, um, you know, it, it reminds me of the old, uh, lady who spilled hot McDonald's coffee.

And ha ha isn't that crazy? Of course, it's hot. There's a lot more to that story than people think.

Uh, by the way, just look it up on Wikipedia. The whole story's right there. Um, and, and I think that there's a lot more to this story, too.

I think that a lot of us sort of got a chuckle out of the fact that somebody, uh, at a soup company was, uh, saying that their soup is basically trash for poor people. Um, especially I think because a lot of us reading that we're pri we're like, Hey, wait a second, I buy that soup. Uh, am I, is he disparaging me?

Um, you know, I, I think that that's kind of what a lot of us were thinking as well. Um, uh, also, um, I wouldn't say that it's for poor people. I think that there's this, the, there's this kind of the name brand, isn't it?

Um, you know, I mean, is, is is Ford cars for poor people? I don't know. I think those are cars for normal people, you know?

I mean, I, it seems to me, but there, it's usually, it usually seems, when you read these stories, there's more to the story. And one more thing, Jeff, that I wanna point out is often when we do hear about cybersecurity stories, let's, let's set this one aside. When we hear about cybersecurity stories, we hear about breaches, we hear about ransomware, we hear about, you know, threats to the company, insiders, whatever.

Uh, in many cases, I think that we're probably receiving just as spun a version of that story as we heard about this particular soup story, a soup tail, soup stained tie. I, I guess we could say, I, i, is that your feeling too, that there's a lot more to these stories that we're not thinking? Absolutely.

You know, the, let's, let's, let's take two of the, probably be the most publicly out there stories. Joe Sullivan, Tim Brown, you know, from, um, Uber and, uh, Tim Brown from SolarWinds. Uh, one ended up, um, getting fired and being convicted.

The other was supported by the organization. And I'm not trying to draw that political difference is still there. Went through a lot.

I mean, had a lot of health issues, um, just going through the big SolarWinds issue. Um, but he's still there in making it work. And in each of those, the story that you read is the tip of the iceberg.

And as we all know, the, you know, the majority of the iceberg is underwater unseen. And that's what's behind a lot of these stories. What was the employee's history of the organization?

What's the culture of the company? Uh, what, what else went on that resulted in that issue? Because when you see the result, you don't necessarily see everything that caused it.

So, um, even with a good root cause analysis. So you're right, there's never, it's never simple. But without question, this one has a, has many more facets.

I have every reason to believe that now attorneys are fully engaged. And many of those components of this story will, will not necessarily be known by us Discover Textron Group, the epicenter of tech innovation. We are your go-to for reaching IT, leaders and practitioners worldwide.

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Contact us today and tell your story to the world in the most powerful way with Textron Group. So we're recording this episode on Cyber Monday. That's right, uh, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Now, most of us have heard about Black Friday, even though there's a whole, I don't know, folklore around like what the meaning of that is and what that's all about. Uh, basically for decades, uh, Americans especially have, uh, run out to the stores the day after Thanksgiving to get the, the greatest deals. Um, you know, doing a lot of shopping.

Uh, personally, I avoid stores like the Plague on the day after Thanksgiving for that exact reason. Um, and then a, a about a decade or two ago, um, this thing called Cyber Monday started happening, which is essentially the equivalent when people go back to the office on Monday after Thanksgiving, and they sit at their, sit down at their computers and they say, oh, man, Christmas is coming. I better do some shopping.

And so all the online businesses start doing Cyber Monday sales. Um, but of course, things have changed in the last few years. You know, not a lot of people are a hundred percent in the office on Monday morning.

Um, of course, also, not everybody has that kind of a job. I think I should point out that more than 50% of all workers in the US and probably a lot more globally, don't work nine to five, uh, in an office kind of environment anyway. I mean, they never worked that way.

And so I guess maybe many of them were probably scratching their heads thinking, you know, why is this a thing? But, uh, Jeff, uh, it's Cyber Monday. So let's talk about Cyber Monday.

Is it still relevant in 2025? Well, I, I think it's relevant for two reasons. One, I'm looking at, um, a, a, an article that came from Adobe Analytics saying $14 billion would've been spent on Cyber Monday.

Let's see how that turns out. That's a big amount. It's a lot, it's a record.

And AI is boosting that. I think this goes back to something we talked about in the earlier segment. Not only is it Cyber Monday and everything you buy online is 20% off.

If you order in free shipping and everything else, you're gonna get about it, which is good, you know, if you wanna be shopping all that and, and you plan for it. But now AI can start predicting based on your history of purchases and purchases in your region and the weather to determine what's gonna get in front of you right now and what are you most likely to buy. So I think, especially because of ai, cyber Monday is even more relevant than it has been in the past, and I think it's overtaking Black Friday.

One, you have lower risk of physical injury plus, um, you have access to a much broader, um, uh, palette of what you can purchase without having to go anywhere to do it. So relevant, uh, I think more than ever, in my opinion. You know, and it's funny, uh, I think that it is absolutely relevant, um, globally.

I think that's one of the most interesting things. If you do a little research into Cyber Monday, you find out, well, I mean, I, I'd, I'd hate to break it to you Americans, but Thanksgiving is only an American holiday. They don't have Thanksgiving and other, uh, well, at least not on this day in all around the world.

But that being said, uh, they have Cyber Monday all over the world. And why? Well, how about, because it's generally the first big shopping day before, uh, Christmas.

You know, I mean, it's, uh, one of those things where we have to, um, try to get into the Christmas shopping binge. I mean, basically that, that happens in December. And this is sort of the kickoff for that.

If we look at the, um, the, the all around the world, uh, in most, uh, countries that celebrate Christmas, uh, basically December is a big shopping, uh, a big shopping year, or a big shopping, uh, month. And, and it, and it happens everywhere. Um, a similar thing by the way, um, happens in China, uh, when they have, uh, sort of the run up to the big holidays that, that they celebrate there.

Uh, the same is true in other, uh, places with other, uh, cultural traditions of giving when they're trying to go out and shop and, and get things for people. So I think it kind of makes sense, even though this term was only coined apparently in 20, in 2005, uh, that's when Cyber Monday first appeared. Um, I, I imagine that the first week in December was always a big shopping week.

Um, is that your, uh, opinion as well? So, yeah, a couple things. First of all, I think Black Friday, uh, the term I heard history was that was a day that, um, retailers books went into the black, uh, for the year.

And I think you can see the, uh, but the, the big thing I think about Black Friday is many people in the US had their Friday the day after Thanksgiving off, which allowed retailers to say, Hey, you're not working. Come into the store and buy stuff. So I really think that was a lot of the impetus behind it.

Um, and now, uh, if you haven't noticed, in the US Black Friday sales started, uh, about a month ago, I started seeing get your Black Friday deals now. So now Cyber Monday, even though it's still called Cyber Monday, and no one here is watching this on Monday, it's a day after you can still get Cyber Monday deals, and you'll be able to do that all week. And chances are, if people don't move what they want, organizations don't move, they want to, you'll have an extended Cyber Monday opportunities maybe even next week.

So this does extend through all of December, and I think it is focused on the consumerism to bye byebye, which, you know, a lot of people need things. It's good to be able to give gifts. There's a whole bunch of good reasons behind it.

But without question, cyber Monday is here to stay, it's going to grow. And who knows, maybe in 10 years it'll be cyber month. Mm-hmm.

Well, and I should point out too, that, um, according, uh, another term I think we should probably mention is Green Monday. Uh, so according to e-commerce sellers, the top sales day is not in fact the Monday after Thanksgiving, but is in fact the, generally speaking, the Monday that's a little over a week before Christmas, uh, which is basically the last day, you can make sure that your stuff is actually gonna arrive in time for Christmas. Uh, and that's usually their top selling day.

So in 2025, by the way, that would be December 8th, which is basically a week from now. Uh, that's pretty much the, the height of online, uh, shopping for Christmas. Um, so there's that, uh, you know, but like you said, I I, I saw Cyber Monday deals this week or this year coming in, um, well before Thanksgiving.

And I expect that we're gonna start, you know, we're gonna still see a bunch of, uh, online shopping promotions happening here, like you said, uh, throughout the, throughout the week. Um, Jeff, uh, just for fun here, um, are there any Cyber Monday deals or basically end of the year online deals, things that you look forward to? Um, I'm sure you got a bunch of renewal notices in your email, uh, in the last week.

Um, what did you see? Um, what, what should you call out? So, um, I, I, I am not your consumer advocate reporter here, so I'm not gonna pretend to en endorse or not endorse any particular products, but for the genre of things I'm looking for, um, I I look for, uh, to me, mainly software.

Um, and a lot of people don't say look at that as, but in, in many cases, software gets get discounts for a number of reasons. You also need to recognize from a corporate perspective that many, um, vendors, uh, fiscal year ends at the end of December. So that is a good time to try to work a deal, whether you want to call it Cyber Monday or not.

But what I look for from a consumer perspective are things that I've been trying to get, whether it's a new microphone or headphones or whatever it's going to be, and I've been waiting 'cause like, eh, that's probably a little more than I wanna spend. I think I can do better. And I look for those, and in some cases I set up re reminders or trackers for it.

So I think that's something, um, more and more people are starting to do, to say, what is it I'm looking for? You know, clothing always worked for me. I always buy, uh, whether it's, uh, especially shirts in December, because that's usually when I can find them to reduce cost and most likely online.

And I don't have to battle the stores and, and drive somewhere and get in traffic and all that other stuff that everyone hates about the holidays, right? So I think there's a lot of goodness there. Uh, I would offer something we need to be aware of that we haven't mentioned yet.

I know in the US the FBI has issued a warning about a very popular scam that's out there. It's really not new, but it's a new twist on it where, um, the bad guys are portraying themselves as either, um, a representative from Amazon or from your bank in particular saying, Hey, here's, um, either a fraudulent activity or you need to approve this, or, we're with a postal service delivery service and you have to, to log in and improve this before we can deliver it to your home. And that's when you think, oh, this must be a gift from, from someone else.

That is very nice. We need to be aware of that because now that a ma a large percentage, if not a majority of our purchases are done online, that means all of our transactions are there an increased opportunity for fraud. The f FBI's aware of this, and I, I'm, although I'm not looking forward to the data, I'm looking forward to a report in say, January that talks about how much was actually lost to cyber scams during the month of December.

And I think that's something else we haven't talked about enough, but we all really need to be aware of You, you know, you're absolutely right about that, Jeff. And, um, you know, one of the, one of the reasons that I do a lot of Black Friday Cyber Monday shopping is because, um, they always, you know, a lot of services have, uh, discounts on annual plans for things. And I get a reminder in my email saying, Hey, you, you gotta renew this now because you bought it last year on sale at this time.

Um, and my first thought now, uh, when receiving those is, is this a scam email? Because like you, I'm in this industry, but I imagine that the first thought for many consumers is, Ooh, I better click this link. And of course I better click this link is magic words for phishing and scam, uh, scammers.

And so I suspect that there's a lot of scams happening, uh, this time of year. Um, Yeah, I'm sorry, Steven. There are, and, and, and I think the easiest way to, um, avoid, to try to avoid that is rather than clicking on it, just go to that company's website.

Best advice ever. If you get contacted from your bank, call the number for your bank. No, don't call the number.

They give you, call the number on the back of your card. If you get an email from a company, um, go to their website, the address that you know that it is, don't go, you know, don't click the link. Um, unfortunately, sometimes the, uh, deals and so on are sent out as links, but, you know, you gotta be suspicious of those.

Um, I guess let's wrap, wrap up though. Uh, let's have a little bit of fun here. Um, I will just throw a couple of a couple of things out here.

Um, I'm a Proton mail user. Uh, proton Mail every year has a huge Black Friday Cyber Monday sale. It's still going on.

It's gonna be going on, I think till Wednesday or Thursday. This, this week. Um, I, I recommend Proton.

And, uh, if, you know, if you're looking at that, that's a, that's a big one. But my favorite, um, crazy Black Friday tradition actually comes from the crazy people over at Cards Against Humanity. Um, every year, the day after Thanksgiving, they do something absolutely nuts.

This year, uh, they had a 99% off sale, not on Cards Against Humanity products, but on all sorts of weird stuff, including a Birkin bag, an actual human skull, a full-size dumpster, um, a 15th century painting, things like that. So they, I, I spent the day after Thanksgiving watching their ridiculous sales, and they really were 99% off. They really did send these things to people.

So if you wanted a $29, uh, 15th century painting of a rich lady, uh, with her face superimposed on John the Baptist, you could have bought one, but only one for $29 on Friday. Um, e every year they come up with something absolutely crazy, and I am here for it. I don't actually buy anything, but I'm here for it.

I'm here to watch it. Uh, how about you? What, what, what have, uh, what kind of Cyber Monday, black Friday craziness have you seen?

So, so I'm crazy enough throughout the year that I don't need a special day. I think you observed that earlier. In fact, I think that was a, well, I think you said I'm a weirdo, and, and I, I wear that probably.

I meant that with love. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

And I accepted it as such. Um, I I, the, by the way, everyone else, all the other Techron gang that aren't on this episode, see, see what you're missing. Also weirdos, I should Point out.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, most. Um, but you know, what I look for, I, you know, the Cards Against Humanity, um, I think always a good organization Exceptional on Black Friday.

Uh, certainly I think, um, any sort of software, especially if it's something you bought in December, always wait until about the second week. 'cause you're probably going to get a really, a really good, um, price on that. Um, I would say I follow a lot of musicians.

I don't wear those shirts when I'm on here, but, um, they all have big sales. Um, Mavericks, John Prine is one of my favorite. Always have big sales this week.

In fact, I brought, I bought four John Prine shirts this morning, so I, you know, not quite as crazy as Cards in Humanity, but it's something I always still look for. Yeah. Well, and that's a really good point.

Um, you know, a lot of people, um, follow sort of a buy small or don't buy, um, uh, ethos, I definitely support that. Um, you know, buy local, buy small, buy from individual craftspeople. I mean, that's always really great, you know, try to give things that support local businesses, try to do shopping that supports local businesses instead of big chains.

Um, and musicians, you know, let's double down on that. I'm also a big music fan. Um, you know, think about ways that you can give the gift of music.

Um, they make most of their money now. I mean, record deals are dead. Spotify has killed sort of everything.

It's a pretty Exciting that this week. Yeah. And, and, and so, you know, buying something from buying a t-shirt from a musician is the best way to support them, apart from actually participating in their Kickstarter and, um, sponsoring their album, which is something that I love to do too, because frankly, um, they're really struggling and they are contributing something that I think all of us can support.

So thanks for that reminder, uh, that it's not all about, you know, uh, going out and fighting over the, some crappy TV at, uh, Walmart. It's actually, uh, better to support local, um, and, and small and, and real people. Absolutely.

Um, and, and go, go to a live event as well. I know this is turning into something we didn't expect here. I I went to a great concert, um, in Austin just last week, Joe Bonamassa.

Now he is not necessarily small and struggling anymore, but he was once, and the, and the way that musicians, artists, performers, um, all, you know, sculptors that the, the way they, everyone that's made it big, at one point, they were struggling and determining whether do I buy beans or pay rent? And you help them get there. So, I, I wanna emphasize and, and support the saving you made, Man.

What a, what an uplifting way to, to, to kick off this holiday season. So you heard it here, first, folks, uh, from Jeff and from me. And I am, you know, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Mike and Alan and the rest of the Textron gang would agree here, support local mu music, support local artists, support local restaurants and stores, and, uh, and let's get out there and, and make a difference this year.

Thanks for listening to, uh, this special edition of, uh, the Textron Gang. We're a very small gang today, but we'll be back tomorrow with a much bigger gang. Uh, I think there, uh, all the folks are out at Amazon.

Uh, AWS reinvent. Uh, there's gonna be a lot of news, there's gonna be a lot of tech. Um, but for now, um, go hit the, uh, go hit the online store of your favorite musician and, and, and buy a t-shirt or just make a donation.

Um, I know they love it. Thanks. Thanks for listening.